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2014 Honda Accord Hybrid Review and Road Test By Larry Nutson


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2014 Honda Accord Hybrid


2014 Honda Accord Hybrid
Happy Honda Days
by Larry Nutson
Senior Editor, New York Bureau
The Auto Channel

In this just-past holiday season between Thanksgiving and Christmas I was right with the spirit for a number of reasons. One being that I was driving the all-new 2014 Honda Accord Hybrid. Thus while either driving around or at home watching TV Honda was very present in my life. I couldn’t avoid seeing Michael Bolton as the star of Honda's year-end sales campaign, "Happy Honda Days" featuring a raft of TV spots featuring Bolton appearing magically at Honda dealerships.


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The Accord got a full redesign last year. New technology was added, fuel consumption was reduced, the interior got an upgrade and the exterior was reshaped. Honda offered an Accord Hybrid back in the last decade but the new hybrid is quite different.

The 2014 Accord Hybrid features a two-motor hybrid system, part of an expanding lineup of Honda Earth Dreams Technology powertrains, that seamlessly blends electric-only, hybrid and engine drive modes along with powerful regenerative braking to provide responsive and efficient performance in a wide range of driving situations. The gasoline engine is a generator for low speed driving. It supplies power to the drive motor as well as recharges the batteries. At speeds above 44 mph the gasoline engine seamlessly connects to drive the front wheels. The electric motor assists depending on the load.

Fuel efficiency is further aided by a number of features exclusive to the Accord Hybrid, and also the Accord Plug-In. These include an all-aluminum front subframe, which replaces the steel-and-aluminum subframe used on the conventional Accord Sedan and Coupe models, and an aluminum rear bumper beam, which helps offset the additional weight of the rear-mounted battery pack while also improving front-to-rear weight balance.


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A number of new Honda technologies debut on the 2014 Accord Hybrid. Some of the key new features include: two-Motor Hybrid Intelligent Multi-Mode Drive (i-MMD) System, 2.0L L4 Atkinson cycle engine, Electric Continuously Variable Transmission (E-CVT), High-output Lithium-Ion (Li-Ion) battery pack, Electric water pump, Electric-servo regenerative braking system, and Amplitude Reactive Dampers.

Total combined engine horsepower is 196HP. EPA test fuel economy ratings are 50 city mpg, 45 highway mpg, for a combined rating of 47 mpg, or 2.1 gallons per 100 miles. In my mixed use urban and highway driving in cold winter temps I didn’t attempt any hypermiling records. On one of my trips I did achieve about 46 mpg overall. Not bad, and pretty close to the EPA combined rating. As a reminder, the EPA sticker was never designed to tell you what fuel economy you can expect to get from your car. The EPA sticker is intended for comparing to other vehicles when you are window shopping. (Compare MPG of ALL cars sold in North America Here)

The 2014 Honda Accord Hybrid is offered in base, EX-L and Touring models. Prices start at $29,155, $31,905, and $34,905 for each, respectively.


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Overall, I found the Accord Hybrid very comfortable, quiet easy to maneuver, very quiet and with good seat
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comfort and easy ingress and egress. I can’t recall when I last drove a vehicle with no engine tachometer in the gauge cluster. Well, the Accord Hybrid doesn’t have one and doesn’t need one, in my opinion. Actually, I have wondered why virtually every car on the market today has a tachometer, when for some of them the owners will never even pay it any attention.


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The 2014 Honda Accord Hybrid has one new feature that Michael Bolton can certainly sing praise about and I’ve dubbed it my all-time favorite new technology feature for this year. Honda calls it Lane Watch Blind Spot Display. The Accord Hybrid's standard LaneWatch blind spot display uses a camera positioned below the passenger-side exterior mirror to display a wide-angle view of the passenger side roadway on the intelligent Multi-Information Display (i-MID). The image appears when the right turn signal is activated, or when a button on the end of the turn signal stalk is pressed.

(IMG_4589) The typical field of view for a passenger-side mirror is approximately 18 to 22 degrees, but the LaneWatch blind spot display field-of-view is about four times greater, or approximately 80 degrees. The system helps the driver to see traffic, as well as pedestrians or objects, in the vehicle's blind spot. To help make judging distance easier, the display has three reference lines. I absolutely love it for city driving with bike lanes on your right. It is an outstanding feature to check and view if there is an approaching bicyclist as you negotiate a right turn, enter a driveway, parallel park or simply pull to the curb to discharge a passenger. LaneWatch is also great for just that, checking the right lane, and I also found it helpful when parallel parking.

The 2014 Honda Accord has been named the "2014 Green Car of the Year" by Green Car Journal. The award recognizes the class-leading environmental performance of the Accord family of vehicles, including the fuel-efficient and low emissions Accord 4-cylinder and V-6 Coupe and Sedan, the EPA-rated 50 mpg city Accord Hybrid and the EPA-rated 115 MPGe combined Accord Plug-in Hybrid.


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Also, the 2014 Honda Accord sedan was named a TOP SAFETY PICK+ by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) under its more challenging technology requirements in guidelines implemented for the 2014 model year.

If you are interested to compare the 2014 Honda Accord Hybrid to other midsize sedans or hybrids you can do that right here on TheAutoChannel.com. For more information and detailed specifications on the 2014 Honda Accord go to www.automobiles.honda.com.

Also, download the free TheAutoChannel smartphone app. The “My Test Drives” app for both the iPad and iPhone is available for free on The Auto Channel app found in the Apple App Store. The Auto Channel's free "My Test Drives" app gives serious car shoppers the help they need to make test drive evaluations accurate, effective and meaningful.

Happy Honda Days to you if the Accord Hybrid is in your future.

© Larry Nutson