Honda Jazz Hybrid

The Honda Jazz has been on the market in Australia since  2008, and is one of a handful of roomy, stylish and peppy light cars, ideal for a city runabout. It's in the same class as Toyota's Prius C hybrid.
Honda has enlarged on that successful formula with the release of the Jazz Hybrid. Using a slightly smaller engine (1.3L) to the 1.5L in the CRZ, the Jazz Hybrid brings even better fuel economy than the standard petrol Jazz, despite being 70 kilos heavier, thanks to the battery pack.
Under way though, there's little to complain about.

The Jazz Moves off with reasonable urge, and even more when the right foot is fully planted. The electric motor then joins the 1.3 litre petrol engine to provide more than adequate forward motion. The CVT transmission( as is the way with all similar gearboxes) flares to higher revs and the car speed then catches up . It's not annoying and once used to it is a very smooth gearbox. The driver can lock the CVT box in lower gears for extra downhill engine braking.
The interior is stylish as before and functional and although the dashtop is hard plastic, it doesn't reflect into the enormous windscreen.
Features include auto climate control, electric windows, cruise control, blue tooth connectivity and a decent sound system.  

The Jazz Hybrid carries over the original car's extremely tight turning circle, ideal for inner city work.
On the open road the petrol engine is running almost all the time. In the 'burbs on a steady or trailing throttle, the Hybrid's energy meter shows a steady charge going to the battery. Put the foot down and the petrol engine kicks in for more urge.
The Jazz Hybrid averages around 5.5 litres per 100 kilometres in the city. You should get about 760 kilometres from its 40  litre tank around town, and that's very good indeed.
On the open road expect consumption to fall to 4.5 litres/ 100k.

Just to remind you of the mechanical wizardry going on up front, the speedo, changes from blue, indicating the petrol engine is operating, through to green when running at it's most efficient. A neat party trick. The sharp angle of the Hybrid's tiny bonnet means you won't see anything of the front of the car beyond the lower edge of the windscreen. That's fine, but a gentle nudge of the garage wall will give owners an indication of how much room they have to play with when parallel parking.

The ride on the Jazz Hybrid is only average, you'll feel most suburban ruts and bumps, but after all it is a light car. The seats however are very comfy, and there's plenty of headroom for rear seat occupants, and lots of cubbies for loose items and odds and ends. Wide opening doors make for easy entry and exit.
The Hybrid does have a flaw however that owners might find a tad frustrating. On hot days when the car is stationary in either normal or ECO mode, the idle stop feature kicks in to save fuel. But the air conditioning compressor also stops functioning, and if you are sitting for any length of time you will quickly start to feel the heat.When the petrol engine automatically restarts, so does the A/C. On most other cars with this "idle stop" feature, it can be overridden with a dashboard button. You can't on the Hybrid, there's no override to keep the  engine ( and a/c ) running.

The Jazz Hybrid sells for around 23 thousand dollars and is therefore the cheapest Hybrid you can buy. Small diesel powered light cars will give similar or even better mileage, so it's up to your personal eco bent to decide which system is right for you.
Peter Sellen.