Getting familiar with my new Innova Hycross: Complete 1000 km in 2 days

A light shove on the accelerator is enough to immediately send it roaring forward.

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Went on a trip to Vellankani, Tamil Nadu and back over the weekend. Nothing like a total of 1000 km over 2 days covered to fully familiarise yourself with your car.

Likes:

Once the hybrid battery is almost fully charged, the engine can turn off and the Hycross can maintain its speed using only the electric motors until either the battery charge drops or you encounter the added resistance of an upward slope or you try to accelerate. Any of these conditions will lead to the engine turning back on for additional power.

The 40 km/h limit applies only to the forced EV mode from the button on the transmission. This is meant to be used for moving your car around in parking lots etc without losing energy by turning on the engine when it will be turned off again before it is even warm.

The highway handling is great, with a well-settled ride and minimal body roll despite the size. Adaptive cruise control will slow down for some curves if it thinks it is too steep. Not sure how it judges them but it seems to know what it is doing. Caught me off guard only once when it went into a curve that I would have normally slowed down for at full speed but ADAS still maintained its lane without me even intervening. There was no drama but it did alarm me because that was unexpected so I turned the set speed down a notch.

The power on offer is pretty good. Change it to power/sport mode and it feels like a different car entirely. A light shove on the accelerator is enough to immediately send it roaring forward. The electric motors are always assisting and there is no waiting for a downshift or for a turbo to spool up. If the hybrid battery charge is too low, the engine revs up higher to compensate.

Dislikes:

Noise: One thing to note here is the noise from the tyres and the wind. On a windy day, you can hear the turbulence from the wind and the noise of the tyres very clearly at speeds above 100. The tyre noise can be taken care of by upgrading to some premium rubbers but I'm at a loss about what to do for wind noise.

Despite being a hybrid, the engine can get very loud if the needle crosses over into the power zone on the tacho when accelerating. You can't even hear the 120kmph beeps over the sound of the engine if you floor it.

Despite the looks of the tri-beam LED headlights, the light output and throw are rather pathetic, especially on high beams. It rained heavily on the first day and I had to slow down to a crawl as I couldn't see anything. To make matters worse, most cars here had upgraded or auxiliary headlamps and couldn't even be bothered to dim their lights. I desperately want to upgrade them but the LED bulbs are not removable! You will need to change the entire headlamp cluster because these are sealed units

The low profile 18-inch wheels along with the recommended 35 psi mean that you will notice broken patches but it is still comfortable. I accidentally sped through one of those trio of speed breakers that I saw too late at night. Braced myself for the worst and pulled over to a gas station to check. Couldn't find any damage and there was no slow leak of air from the tyres over the next day either. Do the same in a European luxury car and your trip will turn into a hunt for a tyre shop that is open at 12am to fix your bent rims (personal experience with a Volvo S60 and a BMW X1).

I will put up with the bad plastics for peace of mind on a rainy night in an unfamiliar place.

Thankfully, it also said what was wrong and showed exactly which sensor was blocked. Turned out to just be some dirt. Just sprayed some water on the sensor and then wiped it with a microfiber cloth and everything was back to normal.

Overall a good trip

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