Honda Accord VTi-LX 2021 Review

Honda is no stranger to hybrids. In fact, the first petrol-electric car to go on sale to the Australian public was a Honda – the quirky Insight three-door coupe that was introduced in March 2001 and beat the Toyota Prius to market by about eight months.

The Honda Insight wasn’t particularly impressive. The driveability and fuel economy weren’t anything special, and the Insight’s packaging was a bit questionable. And, at nearly $50,000 plus on-road costs, it was expensive – a somewhat inappropriate temptation to habitual early-adopters who must have taken quite a ride when it came to trade-in time.

Fast forward almost 20 years and Honda today is just another maker of hybrid vehicles.

The company’s latest offering – which precedes an oncoming rollout of petrol-electric Hondas – is the 10th-generation Honda Accord Hybrid mid-size sedan.

It exists in a crowded milieu of petrol-electric vehicles across various body types including small cars and SUVs, from entry level to luxury class.

Apart from the Honda NSX hypercar introduced in 2017, the 2021 Honda Accord VTi-LX Hybrid, which sells alongside a conventional-driveline 1.5-litre turbo version, is Honda’s first petrol-electric car in the four years since the previous Accord hybrid was discontinued, along with the hybrid Civic, in 2016.

The 10th-gen Accord, hybrid or otherwise, comes with a new twist. No longer just a mid-size contender with a penchant for blandness, the Accord badge now implies luxury, refinement, elegance and dynamic competence.

Honda Australia admits it’s not expecting big sales, and the figures back this up – only about 150 units had been sold to the end of November 2020, whereas Mazda had sold 10 times as many examples of the Mazda6 and Toyota more than 80 times as many Camrys…

That said, the latest Accord could start customers thinking the sizeable Honda sedan has at least a hint of savoir faire and deserves a closer look.

The 2021 Honda Accord may come in either petrol-turbo or hybrid form, but there’s only one spec level: VTi-LX.

With recent prices, the turbo-petrol version is now tagged at $51,990 plus on-road costs, which is about $2000 above the similarly-equipped and similar-size Mazda6 Atenza. The hybrid Accord, at $54,990 plus ORCs, is really getting up there.

Both are fitted out like no Accord before. As well as remote start-up that helps prepare the car for habitation on cold mornings, there’s an impressive tally of standard equipment.

This extends to leather-trimmed seats that are heated up front with 12-way settings and two-person memory on the driver’s side, a head-up display, touch-screen sat-nav, wireless phone charging, paddle shifters (conventional functions on the turbo-petrol and enabling adjustments to the regenerative braking system on the hybrid), a sunroof and an electro-chromatic rear-view mirror.

All good so far, but it’s difficult to understand why Honda’s voice control requires voice tags to be installed before spoken command responses can be activated (others do it, after all), and why the driver memory settings don’t incorporate the external rear-view mirrors or the head-up display.

Also bit of a surprise for a car aiming at high levels of perceived quality is the missing soft-touch padding in the lower-dash area.

The Honda Accord sits on a lighter platform and is roomier, more comfortable, sleeker, more aerodynamic and is crammed with technology addressing safety, refinement and on-road capabilities.

Safety technology includes the usual array of systems under the ‘Honda Sensing’ umbrella which includes low-speed autonomous emergency braking (AEB) in forward and reverse, adaptive cruise control that works across the speed range down to heavy traffic crawling, and rear cross traffic alert.

A novelty is the Accord’s use of a painted-line, verge-sensing road departure system which factors in the braking where necessary and is a step on from – and additional to – the usual lane keep assist systems.

An ANCAP safety rating has not been confirmed, but it’s reasonable to assume the latest Honda Accord should perform well.

The new, bigger platform uses a fair bit of aluminium in striving for the weight reductions that have brought the new-gen Accord down by more than 70kg compared to the previous model. Front suspension is by MacPherson struts, while at the rear there’s a more space-efficient multilink system which helps in the hybrid’s provision of exceptional boot space.

Honda has worked on making the Accord quieter, too. Cabin noise levels are reduced via added sound-deadening including aerodynamic full-underbody covers, special acoustically-tuned wheels, a 4.7mm-thick laminated windscreen and a three-microphone active noise-cancelling system.

A noticeable, slightly unsettling flutter in the new Accord’s (longer) bonnet, visible from the front seats and experienced in both versions, could indicate the need for a little extra panel bracing in this area.

The 2021 Honda Accord Hybrid’s drivetrain is interesting. It’s able to offer pure-electric, petrol-electric or pure-petrol modes and generally it feels like it’s driving through a conventional CVT (continuously variable transmission) though it doesn’t actually have any sort of progressive-ratio system, conventional or variable.

While the conventionally-engined Honda Accord uses a regular CVT – with artificially ‘stepped’ ratios – the hybrid’s E-CVT powertrain is something else again.

Building off an Atkinson-cycle 2.0-litre four-cylinder, the system uses two electric motors – one a drive motor and the other a generator/starter motor – but no transmission as such.

Similar to the system used in Mitsubishi’s Outlander PHEV, it is able to drive the wheels directly from the engine via a lock-up clutch, but only at higher speeds. At lower speeds, from initial start-up, it’s driven by the electric motor which is fed by the charge directed to the battery pack via the petrol engine.

The upshot is that both Accords, though their drivelines are completely different, feel similar on the road. Only if you’re aware of the processes going on do you detect behavioural differences: the conventional Accord feels pretty much the same as your regular CVT although it does benefit from those stepped changes that emulate a conventional automatic gearbox.

The hybrid could pass for a CVT too, as engine revs rise and fall depending on what it’s being asked to do. The dissociated, and sometimes intrusive, engine revs will surprise nobody who’s accustomed to CVT behaviours.

With decent combined electric/petrol outputs of 158kW and 315Nm (available from zero rpm), the hybrid has ready access to power and feels pleasingly quick.

The 140kW/260Nm 1.5-litre turbo-petrol hustles along quite nicely too, although it doesn’t have quite the power-to-weight ratio of the hybrid – and uses more 91 RON fuel into the bargain.

Against the quoted 4.3L/100km for the hybrid and 6.5L/100km for the turbo-petrol, we managed 5.5L/100km and 7.8L/100km respectively, in similar urban/freeway driving conditions.

In recognition of its better economy, the hybrid Accord factors in a smaller 48-litre fuel tank, down eight litres on the turbo-petrol. Quick calculations tell us the hybrid’s frugality should provide a slightly extended cruising range.

Where Honda Accords in the past have chosen a safe mid-point between ride comfort and handling capabilities, the latest version makes no bones about its luxury aspirations.

The ride is quiet and helped along by the longer wheelbase which has been bumped out by 55mm to a substantial 2830mm, equalling the Mazda6 and slightly exceeding the Toyota Camry.

The good thing about the 10th-generation Accord is that it handles well, too. The 60:40 front-rear weight balance is a marked improvement over previous Accords – in particular the V6 – and contributes to a much nicer sense of balance.

Steering feel tends towards light, but it’s reasonably quick nonetheless and the responses, though not quite as sharp as, say, a Mazda6, are far from soggy and vague.

No, it’s not a latter-day version of the late, lamented Honda Accord Euro but, in terms of its general alacrity, it’s come a long way from previous ‘full-size’ Accords.

The turning circle, at 11.4 metres, is not sharp but pretty much on par with its competitors.

The Accord’s cabin, in terms of all-round passenger space, driver vision and the support provided by the well-shaped and comfortably-padded seats, is also excellent. The only minor deficit is that while there’s certainly no shortage of legroom and shoulder-room, headroom for tall passengers in the back seat could be seen as no more than adequate.

While the ambience might fall a bit short of luxurious, there’s nothing that can be easily criticised apart maybe from the shortage of soft-touch surfacing on the lower dash and the conservative choices of trim materials.

That said, Honda’s decision to hold back on the dash design will be welcomed by those who might find the company’s sometimes overdone interior architecture a little too elaborate.

The Accord’s controls are generically simple and intuitive, logically placed and pleasantly tactile.

Major kudos for the Accord’s boot, too. It’s large enough (and better than the bulk of its peers) at 570 litres in the conventional petrol version, and it’s equally as capacious as a hybrid.

In fact, trying to figure out where the engineers tucked away the battery pack isn’t easy. It ended up being sited under the rear seats where it intrudes not one whit on passenger or boot space (deep and uncluttered, Audi-style) and even leaves plenty of room for the space-saver wheel under the boot floor.

In some ways it’s a pity that this impressive new Honda Accord came at the time it did. Mid-size passenger car sales are going nowhere, and some brands are continuing to evaluate their participation in the segment and consider whether to simply cut their losses and leave.

The Subaru Liberty, after more than 30 years of service, is the latest casualty.

The new Accord doesn’t shy away from anything. It has been developed with serious intent and it matches – and in many ways betters – most of its respected competitors in terms of safety, refinement, performance, comfort and on-road capabilities.

And the hybrid’s functionality, if you are prepared to pay $3000 above the price of the conventional Accord, is impressive in terms of power delivery and economy. If you decide to save that money and go for the 1.5-litre turbo you still get a very well packaged, quality sedan that acquits itself with surprising competence on the road.

The Accord’s styling, apart from a somewhat fussy heavily-chromed frontal aspect, is slick and pleasing and far from being stodgy. It lends something of a premium air to what is, after all, Honda’s flagship sedan that is only exceeded in price by the $420,000 NSX hypercar, which is also a hybrid.

How much does the 2021 Honda Accord VTi-LX Hybrid cost?
Price: $54,990 (plus on-road costs)
Available: Now
Engine: 2.0-litre four-cylinder petrol-electric
Output: 158kW/315Nm
Transmission: Continuously variable automatic
Fuel: 4.3L/100km (ADR Combined)
CO2: 98g/km (ADR Combined)
Safety rating: Not tested