2015 Honda Accord | New <b>Car Review</b> - AutoMiddleEast.com |
| 2015 Honda Accord | New <b>Car Review</b> - AutoMiddleEast.com Posted: 26 Aug 2014 12:19 AM PDT Looks The 2015 Honda Accord is a good-looking car. Not much has changed on the skin. The saloon car is simple yet stylish. New LED lights give it a sense of refinement. Subtle contours rise and fall along the sides, making the car look sharp as they join the four corners together seamlessly.
Feels Inside the Accord style continues. The interior clearly knocks its rivals – the Toyota Camry and Nissan Altima – out of the park. There are some unusual shapes in there, all packaged together neatly and finished exquisitely. There is fair amount of glossy plastic that will certainly be susceptible to scratches, but otherwise the Accord feels refined and safe.
Engineering Honda has fitted some clever bits and pieces to the Accord, the most interesting being the "Honda Lane Watch" feature. There is a camera that is mounted within the passenger side wing mirror, eliminating your nearside blind-spot. The Accord is also available with "Variable Cylinder Management", which matches your driving style and deactivates three cylinders to improve fuel economy. The latest gizmo comes in the form of an electric parking brake, which in addition to making the cabin feel a little more premium, brings with it an Auto Hold feature and Hill Start Assist.
On offer There are several variations of the 2015 Honda Accord on offer, with the 4-door saloon ranging between AED 91,000 and AED 129,000. As part of the engine line-up, there's still two options available; a 2.4 litre 4-cylinder and a 3.5 litre V6. However, having bid farewell to port injection, the new direct injected 4-cylinder unit churns out 185 horsepower at 6,400 RPM and 245 Nm of torque at 3,900 RPM, (a jump of 12 horsepower and 20 Nm) while being mated to a CVT transmission. Thankfully, the V6 isn't getting involved with the CVT hype, channeling 274 horsepower at 6,200 RPM and 338 NM of torque at 4,900 RPM through a conventional six speed auto box.
Verdict The Honda Accord can be summed up thusly: it looks good, it feels good, it's economical, and there are plenty of options available. While it may not jump out at you as the best, it will do everything you ask of it, and do it well.
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| Supercar <b>Review</b>: 2015 BMW i8 | Driving Posted: 12 Dec 2014 02:52 AM PST Overview Sporty "green" coupe that makes a convincing argument for hybrid performance KANATA, Ont. — Life may be full of widely divergent grumbles, gripes and grievances, but there are really only two basic types of complaints. The first are born of the hopeless situation — my son's first poli-sci paper, waiting for Stephen Harper to show even a glimpse of a human emotion, etc. — that are really nothing more than bitch sessions. We know that any thought of salvation is futile, that our plaints will fall on deaf ears, but we lament on nonetheless; it's simply the human condition to tilt at windmills.  2015 BMW i8 The second type of complaint is, unlike the first, born of hope. Not always easily distinguished from the first — especially, as every husband/wife/parent knows, by spouse or son — the hopeful jeremiad is based on potential seen but as yet unrealized. A helpful comma here, son, or a suggestion that the BBQ shouldn't be quite so close to the clothesline, dear, is just the Grumposaurus Rex's way of saying we care. Motor Mouth: Here's why BMW's i8 is the new 'it' car The very same differentiation applies to automobile road tests. A condemnation of Chrysler's old Sebring convertible and BMW's new i8 hybrid sports car might both be born of frustration, but one carries the exasperation of excellence that might have been perfected while the other, as I still can't seem to forget, had absolutely no redeeming qualities whatsoever other than cheap price.  2015 BMW i8 Indeed, though I take exception to a few of its foibles/inadequacies/oversights, it's almost impossible to not be impressed with BMW's little carbon fibred hybrid roustabout. And, as proof that even an old grouch can glean a hint of sensitivity — see aforementioned spouse and son; lessons learned — I will start this criticism by listing what I like about the i8 before I start picking on its inevitable nits. Read more: What I learned about hybrids while driving BMW's i8 First, the damn thing is just so attractive. Just because it doesn't float my particular boat doesn't mean it isn't achingly gorgeous. The people have spoken and, if the throngs that congregated around the little black two-door are any indication, the i8 is the sexiest thing on wheels since Audi unveiled the R8. The i8 is also supremely sophisticated, its melding of gasoline and electric motors more seamless than anything in the biz (yes, that includes the Prius). For the uninitiated, that means melding a 129 horsepower, high-speed electric motor that drives the front wheels to a 228-hp, 1.5-litre turbocharged triple (yes, but three pistons in something that costs just slightly less than 150 large) that powers the rears and feeding both through a combination of 7.1 kilowatt-hours of lithium-ion ensconced in the "transmission tunnel" and a microcar-sized 42 litre gas tank just ahead of the engine.  2015 BMW i8 It all works in such a glorious harmony that it makes you wonder why cars haven't always been powered thus. In pure electric mode — a paltry 24 kilometres though it may be — the i8 is almost too silent, BMW having managed to make carbon fibre construction not only semi-affordable but also comparatively silent (the rigid structure of carbon fibre tubs can render cabins a little boomy, not a huge issue with the supercars that currently employ the lighter-than-metal weave, but important if it is ever to revolutionize the garden variety sedan). It's also semi-sprightly, more than able to keep up with traffic even while accelerating emissions-free and reaching a practical 125 kilometre an hour top speed running on lithium-ion alone. Car Review: 2014 BMW i3 Most importantly — at least if you have sampled BMW's other electrified effort, the i3 — Munich's engineers have worked out a better compromise between regenerative battery recharging and sensible brake performance. Unlike the i3, the i8's binders feel almost hydraulic in nature and there is none of the herky-jerky on/off throttle transition that plagues the company's all-electric little minivan-cum-hatchback. BMW should retrofit the i3 with the i8's algorithm. Slip the gear lever into the Comfort mode and the little gas engine kicks in. Comfort also sees the i8's guardian computer mapping out the best combination of gas and electric power for maximum fuel economy. This is when the i8 feels most typically hybrid, taking off from a stop electrically and then calling on fossil fuel as greater acceleration dictates. Again, the entire process is all aplomb and sophistication.  2015 BMW i8 Fuel economy — the whole reason for hybridization — is either very good or moderately mediocre depending on your driving habits and/or expectations. I averaged, for instance, 7.4 litres for every 100 kilometres I drove at 120 km/h between Toronto and Ottawa, decent numbers indeed (and better than the 8.1 L/100 km Natural Resources Canada rates it for) but no better than a diesel-powered Audi A6 that costs half as much and is made of nothing more high-tech than steel and can fit four quite comfortably. Around town, however, I average a little more than 8.0 L/100 km (right on NRCan's 8.4 L/100 km estimate), commendable indeed for something that boasts a total of 357 horsepower and can, if pressed, run with a Porsche Carrera S. By comparison, a Ford C-MAX, likewise hybridized but decidedly more poky, averaged around 7.6. Of course, no one will be buying an i8 for its fuel economy. Oh, to be sure, the lucky few that can afford BMW's top-of-the-line sports car will laud its picayune emissions (just 49 grams of carbon dioxide emitted every kilometre according to the New European Driving Cycle) as motivations to park the i8 in their driveway, but the real reason they'll fork over $145,000+ is what happens when they push the throttle. Slip the shift lever into Sport mode — when the gas engine becomes fully engaged, maximum thrust is available from the electric motor and brake regen is at its highest — and BMW claims the i8 will sprint to 100 km/h in 4.4 seconds. That is not quite worthy of the supercar status that more than a few of my fellow autojournalists have been trying to ascribe to the i8, but it does neatly split the official times quoted by Porsche for its manual transmission (4.5s) and PDKed (4.3s) versions of the 400-hp 911 Carrera S. Call it supercar adjacent then. Like all BMWs, the i8 is governed for a top speed of 250 km/h. But unlike the company's purely fossil fueled performance cars — M4, M5 et al — which could speed well past 156 miles per hour were they not electronically limited, the i8 would struggle to go faster even if the safety nanny was removed. Like all hybrids, even though it is hooked up to a two-speed gearbox the electric motor still runs out of puff at high speed and above about 200 kilometres an hour, the i8 is being mostly propelled by that little 1.5-litre gas engine which, turbocharged or no, has its work cut out for it. At more sedate speed, though, the i8 makes a more convincing argument for hybrid performance, especially in 80 to 120 km/h "passing" acceleration where the combination of torquey turbocharger, equally torquey electric motor and slick-shifting six-speed automatic transmission give it jump to make even supercars jealous. The price for getting so much (performance) from so little (fuel consumption), however, is that BMW scrimps in two very critical arenas. First, the electric driving range, at least in a big sprawl like Toronto, is simply not sufficient. 24 kilometres — the official max range from a fully charged battery — is enough to get you downtown, for instance, but not enough to return. In its quest for its (comparatively, for a plug-in hybrid) light 1,575 kilogram curb weight, BMW squeezed but 7.1 kW-h (5.1 of which it actually uses, lithium ions not liking to be totally drained) of battery under the floorpan. A hundred kilograms more lithium, even if it meant adding a tenth or two to the zero-to-100 times, might have seen the i8 able to venture a more useful 50 kilometres in pure EV mode. I'm as a keen on performance as any, but BMW should have erred on the side of emissions reduction and pumped some more electrons into the battery. Car Review: 2014 Tesla Model S P85+ The other thing that remains puzzling is that BMW deliberately designed the i8 as a grand tourer rather than an outright supercar, imbuing it with both a rear trunk (uncommon amongst "supercars" with rear, mid-engined layouts) and 2 + 2 seating. But, both are (seemingly) determinedly inadequate. Even by the impractical standards of sports cars (I'm referring here to Porsche's 911 and Jaguar's XK whose rear perches are reserved only for the limber and masochistic), the i8's rear seating is all but useless. And the rear trunk (at 154 litres, about the same as a Mazda Miata) couldn't carry enough groceries to get a family of four through a hearty barbecue. Both speak to a lack of focus at the i8's conception stage rather than faulty engineering.  2015 BMW i8 And this, finally, is the well-intentioned curmudgeonliness I alluded to earlier. Why, BMW, did you bother with such patently obvious pretenses to practicality when no practicality was intended? You could have added a few inches of rear legroom and a dollop of cubic inches of cargo space and had a sultry, practical hybrid sports tourer to challenge the Tesla Model S. Or you could have jettisoned the rear seats altogether, ladled in the lithium and had some seriously useful electric range. As it stands, the i8, as impressive an engineering feat as we've come to expect from BMW, is neither grand touring fish nor supercar fowl. Its sins, however, are of omission rather than commission and, misgivings to its ultimate purpose aside, there should be absolutely no doubt that BMW has brought all its sophistication to bear on the hybrid sports car market. The Specs Type of vehicle All-wheel-drive, plug-in hybrid sports car |
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