Driving The Hybrid Honda Jazz and Freed

Three days in Japan gave us exposure to two important things – the sweetest people in the world and an incredibly diverse car culture. The sea of full-sized sedans like the Toyota Crown and Honda Accord is frequently cut by Suzuki Kei cars like the Hustler and Ignis. The choices may be varied but there is a liking that stays common – hybrids. Spotting little blue and green badges behind boot-lids and tailgates is common and statistics back it up. Honda has sold 2.1 million hybrids worldwide and in Japan alone, they account for 30 per cent of all car sales!
So, in the backdrop of our experience with Honda’s Clarity range, we got to take a short spin at the helm of two Honda ‘Sport Hybrids’. We had to call dibs and big man that I am, I reached for the smallest car: the Jazz/Fit. Why? Simple, I own one, albeit the older generation.

Alien On The Surface?

Not at all. These aren’t green cars with ambitions for a casting call in some 80’s movie about the future. Both the Jazz and Freed look like regular family cars, so car buyers with humble needs aren’t overwhelmed. On first impressions, the Fit Hybrid looks like nothing more than a slight tweak when compared to the India-spec car, but skin deep, it’s a different car altogether.

Technically Speaking
Under the bonnet is a 1.5-litre, 4-cylinder engine that makes 110PS of power and 134Nm of torque which works in conjunction with an electric motor that offers 29.5PS and 160Nm of torque. Yes, it’s the same setup you get in the Grace (Honda City) hybrid and Honda claims an efficiency of 31.8kmpl (JC08 rated).

Drive It Already
Ok, this isn’t going to be a review. We drove for all of 3kms on a closed circuit at speeds of under 50kmph. If anyone gives you an exhaustive review from that, god bless ‘em. But more to the point, the Jazz hybrid feels quite similar to the Accord Hybrid to drive. Starting off is dead silent since it runs only on electric mode. At low speeds, even when the engine kicks in, it barely makes a whisper more than an AC compressor. Under these circumstances, the sheer quietness makes you pick up on what little seeps through. Primarily, that’s tyre noise. Something you will pick up on quickly if you’re driving a hybrid or EV for the first time, especially if the radio’s off.

Then came a sharp incline and the opportunity to pin it could not be resisted. That’s when the engine is heard but since it’s a Honda, it doesn’t get particularly thrashy. This feels like a car that’d be fun to push. Remember that saying? It’s better to drive a slow car fast than a fast car hard. Heck, you even get paddle-shifters to operate the 7-speed twin-clutch automatic transmission. That said, it’s still a conservative gearbox and if you engine brake too hard, expect the gearbox to trust its logic over yours.
Otherwise, the car retains the qualities that make it a fine family machine.

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And the Freed?

I’m no MPV fan but the Freed has a personality. It looks unassuming but has a quirky interior design and backs it up with the practicality you’d expect. The 6-seater uses the exact same powertrain as the Jazz/Fit hybrid but the heavier weight makes it a marginally heavier sipper, delivering 26.6kmpl. The drive experience, of course, wasn’t enough to draw distinctions with its smaller sibling, but the Freed amplifies the Jazz’s sense of space and visibility twice over. Does it have potential in India? Yes. But that’s where that conversation ends.

That said, Honda Car India Limited (HCIL) is getting serious with its EV plans and is now analysing the opportunity in our sub-continent. Here’s hoping the Urban EV concept becomes something more than a showpiece for us to tweet about from a distance.