Honda Jazz Hybrid 2013 Review - International

Honda Jazz Hybrid

First Drive
Hokkaido, Japan

What we liked:
>>> Fresh, new styling
>>> Great handling
>>> Class-leading mileage

Not so much:
>>> Interior trim quality
>>> Bland dash design
>>> We have to wait until mid-2014

“When you’re on a good thing, stick to it,” they say, and Honda has followed that formula since launching the first Jazz back in 2001.

And why not? It’s worked wonders for the Japanese giant so far. Now manufactured at 10 plants in eight countries, the Jazz has found more than four million homes worldwide.

The second generation released in 2007 essentially followed the original’s design with a bolder grille and headlights, and maintained the car’s central fuel tank layout and dimensions.

But all that’s about to change with the third-generation Jazz, which was revealed in July and goes on sale in Japan this month, before arriving in Australia in mid-2014

According to the chief engineer of the MkIII Jazz, Makoto Konishi: “It’s time for a big change. That ‘good thing’ needs to get better.”

Konishi-san rallied his R&D team by urging them to create the “Super Cub of the car world.” The Cub was a small 50cc motorcycle launched in 1958 that became the biggest seller ever (60 million in 50 years).

We got a chance to test the all-new Jazz at Honda’s Takasu Proving Ground in Hokkaido and can say the car looks better in the metal than in photos. The front-end is stunningly bolder and adds plenty of street cred. It appears to take certain design hints from the Clarity FCX fuel-call car, the CR-V and even the new NSX.

Design boss Toshinobu Minami says that in designing the new exterior, he wanted to make a strong connection with a market smitten with smartphones and the internet -- a market fascinated by new gadgets.

“We had to give the new model a significantly new face and stronger road presence while maintaining its compact dimensions,” he said. “The face especially had to exude ‘new’. That is why Honda opted for a more solid face with an ‘exciting edge design’.”

In a strange twist, Minami commented that he would have liked Honda’s announcement to return to F1 with McLaren to have come a year earlier. That way he could have incorporated some McLaren design hints into the Jazz. As it is he seems happy enough, but does admit that some people may find its looks over the top.

We drove a pre-production model, but the production model rides on the same longer wheelbase (by about 50mm) and will come with almost identical length, height and width measurements as the previous model.

Honda has also incorporated a totally new range of engines – 1.3-litre petrol, 1.5-litre petrol and 1.5-litre hybrid, all of which offer twin-cam designs, in comparison to the outgoing model’s single-cam engines.

Of course, fronting the new engine line-up is the new 1.5-litre Atkinson Cycle four-cylinder IMA hybrid mated to a new one-motor, intelligent dual-clutch drive combination.

Generating 101kW of power at 6000rpm and 169Nm of torque at 5000rpm, the new hybrid delivers plenty of power with super-low fuel consumption of just 2.7L/100km – far less than the existing Jazz Hybrid (4.5L/100km), which was launched Down Under in February.

One engineer did admit, however, that in real-world driving situations that consumption figure would increase by about 15 per cent.

Honda offered a few laps in the Hybrid, the 1.5-litre RS with six-speed manual transmission and the 1.3-litre with new CVT. But before we hit the road, senior handling and ride quality engineer Terumasa Kotada told us that Honda benchmarked its Jazz on a certain Volkswagen.

“In upping our game, we wanted to make a stronger international competitor, so we benchmarked our Jazz on the Polo,” he said.

“The moment you get in the Polo, you notice how low you sit in the car. This instils confidence. And then when you drive the Polo, you notice how low its roll centre is and its huge stability levels, instilling even more confidence. To get our desired result, I tested the car extensively on the autobahns in Germany.”

To give the Jazz better road feel, feedback and stability, Kotada says he totally reworked the car’s suspension geometry by adding a new H-beam torsion rear suspension set-up and a revised front strut design. Taking lessons from the Polo, toe control and caster angle were revised and the electric power steering was modified give the car a more natural feel.

The end result is impressive and, on the road, all of these revisions are more than obvious. Sitting marginally lower in the new Jazz, you can feel the improved straight-line stability immediately. And yes, the car does instil more confidence in the driver.

In a strange way, the Honda actually feels bigger and more substantial on the road, and turns in like a charm with almost no understeer and loads of feedback. It rolls less into corners and is more stable at speed, gripping the blacktop while the rear follows neatly and cleanly.

Under heavy braking, the Jazz resists nose dive as the back-end stays absolutely planted. “Rear-end stability is just one major result of our Polo-inspired suspension redesign,” adds Kotada.

While the new Jazz Hybrid can travel at speeds of up to 40km/h on EV-only mode for short stints, the engine integration is seamless and produces performance that clearly outdoes the outgoing model.

Employing a new seven-speed dual-clutch transmission, the hybrid Jazz accelerates more than adequately, filling the cabin with a sporty exhaust note that has been tuned and silenced -- with sound-absorbing felt -- to delete all human-unfriendly sounds.

Honda tell us that the new dual-clutch was a direct effort to quell criticism of the car’s CVT, which certain quarters said was loud and full of vibration while sapping the car’s power. This new transmission is perfectly married to the 1.5-litre petrol-electric powertrain, allowing drivers to grab higher gears instantly and seamlessly via steering wheel-mounted paddle shifters.

The 1.3-litre Atkinson Cycle four generating 73kW and 119Nm boasts a new twin-cam configuration and a new CVT.

“Getting the CVT to interact smoothly and quietly with the engine and generating enough power while keeping fuel consumption down was our biggest challenge,” says senior drivetrain engineer Hideki Wakamatsu. The new engine generates stronger torque right across the powerband, but is beefiest between 2000 and 3000rpm.

While the Jazz’s dash design is simple yet functional, it is not in the same class as the Polo when it comes to interior trim materials and quality. When you benchmark a car on another, you expect to see significant improvements in all major areas, but Honda says we can expect to see further refinements inside the car before it goes on sale in Australia next year.

There’s no doubt the latest Jazz presents a fresh and new exterior design, but its radical departure could polarise potential buyers. We’re in the ‘like it’ camp, and once behind the driver’s seat few who drive it will find the car wanting, especially in the on-road experience.
Honda seems to have found its ‘mojo’ again. It’ll be back in Formula One in 2015 – the same year it launches a new NSX supercar, and a smaller sports car is on the way too.

In addition, the new Civic Type R will soon challenge the Megane RS for the fastest lap by a front-drive car at the Nurburgring. Undoubtedly, the new Jazz is a reflection of the company’s newfound corporate confidence.

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