Honda CR-Z hybrid *production* version

[cfg83]

Old Tele man -

Originally Posted by Old Tele man

...unfortunately, if Honda-marketing is anything like GM-marketing, they only cater to the 80-85% portion of the market these days...the other 15-20% are not 'worthy' of their interest.

...for instance, as the automatic transmission moved up to >80% popularity level, GM started making them standard equipment on some models and totally eliminated availabilty of a manual transmission.

...unfortunately, the "eco" movement hasn't reached the 80% level (yet).

I wish they would do a marketing study to see if Ecomodders like us would pay *more* for an Eco package. There's got to be a niche market for people like me that will pay for a CRZ "HF". I want the 6-speed tranny with a taller 6th gear and an even more agressive eco-fuelly mode. After all, the override to any eco-mode is always the accelerator pedal.

CarloSW2

[Arragonis]

Originally Posted by cfg83

I wish they would do a marketing study to see if Ecomodders like us would pay *more* for an Eco package. There's got to be a niche market for people like me that will pay for a CRZ "HF". I want the 6-speed tranny with a taller 6th gear and an even more agressive eco-fuelly mode. After all, the override to any eco-mode is always the accelerator pedal.

You would have to put me down as a no - I would choose to buy a car which had similar features to these against one that didn't but I would not choose to pay more for them on the same car. I probably will never buy a brand new car again anyway. I'll possibly look at a CR-Z in a year or three when the 'must have it now' types have owned it for 3 months and got bored. But if it is like the current Euro Civic then it may not be as durable as old Hondas used to be.

Again from the reviews though if you want the best CR-Z for eco and go then the base model seems to be the best option.

[RobertSmalls]

These features cost money to implement, so unless people are willing to pay for XFi/SFE/HF packages, we won't see them around much.

Last year, hybrid market share fell to around 3%.

[cfg83]

Arragonis -

I have no problem with that. That's why I said "niche" market. I expect to pay more when there isn't enough volume to lower the cost of the option(s) that I want.

Also, this way you can eventually buy one used, .

CarloSW2

[AJI]

Originally Posted by Arragonis

But if it is like the current Euro Civic then it may not be as durable as old Hondas used to be.

Bear in mind that the CR-Z is a worldwide model, wheras the Euro Civic is Euro-market only. Whether that has any bearing on quality or not is a different matter, but it does mean that one being a bit iffy doesn't necessarily have an affect on the other.

Again from the reviews though if you want the best CR-Z for eco and go then the base model seems to be the best option.

I've not actually seen any reviews of the base model yet but it seems by far the best choice for me unless you really like your toys. £17k isn't a bad price at all for the car you get and essentially in a car like the CR-Z the focus is on the economy and the handling - and paying more for the higher specced versions doesn't improve either of those.

[davidgrey50]

Originally Posted by Old Tele man

"...necessity is the Mother of necessity," or something like that!

"Necessity is the invention of mothers."

[gone-ot]

Originally Posted by davidgrey50

"Necessity is the invention of mothers."

...as in MOTHER's car wash & shine? (wink,wink)

[Frank Lee]

Mothers create the necessity for inventions.

[Allch Chcar]

"Necessity is the Mother of Invention."


I haven't seen anything on the Coef for CR-Z, it looks wider no doubt but it's hardly taller so the frontal area is close between the CR-X and CR-Z. But there is truth like the ringing of a bell to the statements it doesn't appeal to the regular Hybrid crowd and it doesn't appeal to the performance Honda crowd. The First Gen insight was only popular among performance Honda groups because they swapped the engine for a 2.0liter. That's all I'm reading about on Honda-tech despite Spoon building their modified version of the CR-Z.

[AJI]

I think from a performance and an economy perspective the car has potential though. Just probably not at the same time.

The ironic thing is that Honda have probably struck a very good compromise between performance and economy. You can make it more economical or faster, but one will always harm the other.

Personally, I'd get the CR-Z as a performance car first and economy car second. If I wanted to go further on economy I'd just buy myself a second-hand 1st-gen Insight with the money I'd save by going for the base-model CR-Z rather than the GT!