Overview

THERE’S a sad feeling that Honda crawled under a rock a few years ago and has stayed there. The brand is almost invisible on the busy Australian market, swamped by an avalanche of fresh faces and crushed by the stampede to new cars based on fuel consumption and price.

Yet that makes me ignorant. True, Honda is well out of the top 10, or 20, brands on the majority of new-car buyers’ shopping lists, especially those aged in their 20s and 30s who may have missed Honda’s years of spectacular engineering and practical design themes.

But that was then. Honda still makes pretty good models but the accountants took over the board and gave the company’s direction a rousing shake and put the focus on profitability.

So now we have no spectacular engineering and not much profitability, but we do have a practical design theme.

Take the CR-V and ZR-V, siblings that share a sensible and enjoyable approach to not only going from Point A to B, but doing so with frugal ownership and in a vehicle that looks smart, drives really well and is both well built and reliable.

The ZR-V – particularly the test version which is the top-spec e:HEV LX hybrid – gets attention for a few reasons, not the least being that Honda recently chopped $3000 off the price.

That doesn’t make it inexpensive, especially in this competitive market, but it does make it more attractive pushing it into the shopping list with the Jaecoo J7, Nissan Qashqai and Toyota Corolla Cross, among a lot of others.

The attractions of the ZR-V are its promise of fuel efficiency thanks to its hybrid power train, solid engineering, excellent ownership (service) costs, good looks – well, maybe the grille treatment is a bit dorky – and Honda’s name for quality.

There are also some downsides, not the least being that at $51,900 drive away, it’s still not an inexpensive new-car.

It comes up against the Qashqai ePower ($53,850 plus costs), Toyota Corolla Cross Atmos/GR ($50,990 plus costs) and Jaecoo J7 PHEV ($47,990 drive away) which may bend prospective buyers mainly because of that price difference but also attributed to subjectively prettier looks and the feature and tech list.

I get that price is important. Sometimes you just have to drive the car before making the final decision and in this area, the ZR-V is a surprisingly alluring rival.

Sizing is an issue with the ZR-V as it sits between the CR-V and the HR-V in price and size, being only 136mm shorter than the CR-V and about 200mm longer than the HR-V.

It’s classified as a medium SUV (in the same category as the CR-V) yet looks decidedly more like a small SUV entrant.

Dimensions are 4568mm long (a mere 8mm longer than its Civic hybrid sibling) with an 1840mm width and 1620mm height. The ZR-V sits on a 2655mm wheelbase (80mm longer than the Civic hybrid) and weighs a modest (by today’s standards) 1586kg.

Overall length isn’t a definitive comparison, because although the cabin room is pretty good for four adults, the boot space is more in the small category at 370 litres.

That is smaller than its potential rivals including the car on which it is based, the Honda Civic e:HEV hatch at 409 litres. It does, however, get better when the rear seat is folded down to make 1302 litres.

Luggage space may be constrained but cabin room for occupants is more than acceptable, with good leg and head room for two adults in the back and good door access to the rear.

And there's an unexpected bonus. The ZR-V has heated seats – finished in leather – in the front and rear, along with a heated steering wheel. The two front seats have electric adjustment.

Given its potential market for (small) families, there’s also three top-tether anchor points for baby seats and two Isofix anchors with rear air vents.

Other cabin features include sat-nav, Android Auto (wired), CarPlay (wireless), built-in Google tech, a Bose audio system with 12 speakers, and wireless phone charger. The central screen is a smallish 9.0-inch with a 12.2-inch screen for the driver instrumentation.

The external mirrors are heated and have an auto-fold function, along with the passenger side automatically tilting when the vehicle is reversing.

The overall fit and finish is very good and with the high quality feel and subtle good looks of the cabin, the top-spec LX version of the car comes close to vindicating its $51,000-plus price tag.

The Honda ZR-V has a four-star ANCAP safety rating which is based on EuroNCAP testing in 2023.

The ZR-V missed the top five-star rating because testing noted that the front centre airbag did not provide sufficient protection in preventing the heads of the front occupants from colliding.

It does, however, have a lot of safety items including AEB, lane departure warning, lane keeping, 11 airbags, 360-degree camera, rear cross-traffic alert, road departure mitigation, active cruise control, driver attention monitor and a tyre pressure monitoring system.

Notably, it has no annoying speed warning chimes/bells/buzzes that seem to have taken over modern car cabins.

ANCAP’s rating, based on EuroNCAP, includes an 79 per cent rating for adult occupant protection; 88 per cent for child occupant protection; 81 per cent for vulnerable road user protection; and 68 per cent for safety assist features.

From an ownership perspective, Honda really looks after its customers. There’s a five-year unlimited distance warranty on the ZR-V but if you remain with Honda for servicing for five years, will extend that to eight years. It also has a five-year roadside assistance program that will also be stretched to eight years if the owner remains loyal to the Honda service department.

The hybrid battery has a separate eight-year warranty, too. Then there’s five years of free over-the-air (OTA) upgrades to the sat-nav’s maps and free five year subscription to Honda Connect.

Service intervals are 12 months or 10,000km and will cost a flat $199 each visit – about the cheapest on the market.

This can be extended to eight years (providing the car is always serviced by Honda) at the same price.   

Driving impressions

There’s a lot of the Civic hybrid in the ZR-V. And that’s a really good thing.

In fact, they share drivetrain specifications including the 2.0-litre naturally-aspirated four-cylinder engine.

The ‘R’ engine in LFC guise is also used in the hybrid versions of the Civic, CR-V and Prelude. The petrol Atkinson-cycle engine delivers 104kW /186Nm.

The interesting bit is the two electric motors that cohabit with this engine. One motor is basically the starter for the petrol engine while the other is the car’s primary power source.

The petrol engine becomes the generator for the traction battery and called on when the car demands more power, such as towing or high-speed work.

The power motor has 135kW/315Nm and incidentally, the combined output is the same – 135kW/315Nm – because the electric motor is driving the front wheels in series with the petrol engine.

Because the electric motor is always in use and is where the bulk of the power comes from, there’s no transition from this motor to the petrol engine. So the drive sensation is seamless and quiet, differing from some rivals where the transition between the two power sources is discernible.

I have raved about the Prelude previously, not as a sports car but as a beautifully crafted and thankfully uncomplex two-door that rewards with all the simple pleasures of driving without making a fuss. It’s not fast, but it’s comfortable, quiet and handles beautifully. It doesn’t look too bad, either.

The ZR-V replicates those features, just without the beautiful looks. It is surprisingly nimble, has delightful road manners and will turn into corners like a well-tuned sedan (or coupe) with a supple suspension system and an electric power steering unit that actually has some feedback.

Occupants never complained about the quietness or ride compliance so that indicates the car is pretty much on the mark in its price and size bracket and in suiting the needs of a family.

Even if you don’t appreciate roadholding as an art or suspension as a science, you will very much appreciate how easy and accurate the ZR-V is to drive. Hello. Honda shows its 2026 face.

That aside, the ZR-V e:HEV (hybrid) will sell because it’s a hybrid and promise less pain at the petrol pump.

Indeed, the fuel consumption is claimed by Honda at 5.0 litres per 100km, drawn from a 57-litre fuel tank. If that isn’t welcome for budget-conscious motorists, then its use of the cheapest 91RON petrol certainly will.

On Honda’s reckoning, the ZR-V is good for 1140km at its fuel average claim. In city driving, Honda also quotes 2.5 L/100km and 6.5 L/100km on the open road.

On test, it used 5.4 L/100km as an average, which equates to many rivals although most of those need more expensive 95RON petrol.