Last Friday I decided that it was time to contact my dealer about the Crosstar and this morning I took their demonstrator out for a 20 mile test drive on a mixture of rural and urban roads. First we did a test of the remote locking (hold down both buttons for a few seconds until the LED flashed as described on page 169 of the online PDF manual) and then approached the vehicle. It didn't respond to the remote until I pressed a button to activate it again. This security feature was news to the dealer and they'll now be checking their other Hondas with the smart entry. We also discovered that the paper manual is completely different to the pdf online manual.
I had a look under the bonnet (see photo). It's very congested with a couple of of orange flexible conduits that contain the HV cables. There's a rectangular silver box where the gearbox would be and I assume that this houses the generator / motor generator / reduction gear and clutch. The 12V battery looks to be even smaller than on a Mk 3 Jazz. The DRLs are around the outside / bottom of the headlight units while the front indicator lights are strips along the top of the headlight units (so better separation than with very close bulbs). There is no provision to reduce airflow to help winter engine warm-up (but the handbook has a warning or two about overheating so perhaps Honda reckon that the airflow isn't big enough to be worth controlling.
Starting off was a slightly surreal experience as it was just a matter of pressing the power button (numerous lights come on) putting the gear shift into D, releasing the parking brake (probably not necessary) and pressing the accelerator. If the vehicle made a warning noise (it should do when running on battery at slow speed) then I couldn't hear it. With a bit more speed the engine woke up but this was only evident due to a change in the power flow graphic and EV symbol. Overall, the vehicle felt a lot more responsive than my HR-V with the noise-free acceleration making it very easy to exceed the urban speed limits. Mk 3 Jazz owners will notice a very big difference. I gave the accelerator a push while going up a hill and the engine became audible but not particularly loud so I wonder if Honda have improved the sound-proofing compared to previous models.
The Crosstar also went over potholes and patches with less jostling and grunting than my HR-V (which is better than the previous Jazzes). However, this may reflect the longer suspension travel which one of the press reviews mentioned. To me this is a selling point for the Crosstar although probably not mentioned by Honda as it would imply that the suspension on the Mk 4 Jazz could be better. The weather was fairly sunny and I didn't wear my polaroids so I could see if glare off the top of the dashboard onto the windscreen was a big problem. It was not. In fact, although present, it wasn't particularly noticeable until driving into the sun under a series of trees turned the glare off and on. Some of the shady bits were probably enough to get my HR-V to turn the headlights on but there was no sign of that happening so I hope that this annoyance on the Mk 3 Jazz / HR-V has been fixed.
The boot isn't generous but I called in at home and checked that a 55cm trolley bag (which we use if travelling in UK) would fit when placed in line with the vehicle. It did without much space to spare but that's enough. I also tried to test the corner parking sensors and think they are an improvement although not as much as I would like. It should be possible to calibrate the distance and change in colour of the display on the big screen.
The other item of interest was the fuel economy. I had already estimated based on the published data that I should be able to get 70 mpg with my driving style (for comparison my year with a Mk 3 Jazz averaged 58 mpg based on fuel into tank). Anyway, according to the fibometer the vehicle slightly improved on my estimate (see photo - the trip was in two parts with a short stop at home) but I don't think I every exceeded 50 mph so avoid the higher speeds where the mpg starts to suffer. However, I suspect that the engine was fairly warm before I started and the weather was very amenable.
My conclusion was that while the vehicle doesn't meet all requirements on my wish-list it's a noticeable improvement on my current vehicle and I've put down a deposit. However, Honda's system hasn't completely recovered from last week's outage so the dealer wasn't able to check stock availability so I don't currently know when I might get to own a Crosstar given that red or blue are the only two colours of interest and I don't want a black roof. I had originally proposed blue as being more distinctive but the female half of the household prefers red (which I would admit will require less frequent cleaning). Availabilty may be the deciding factor.