No plug-equipped electrics until 2026 won’t be an issue, maker believes.

AMBITION to elevate electrification of Honda cars is a ‘must do’ but won’t realise until 2026 as ostensibly good current candidates in circulation elsewhere aren’t eligible for NZ residency.

Honda NZ desire to bump up to more heavily involved battery-fed drivetrains expressed at yesterday’s media launch of the latest CR-V.

However, at same time local high ups expressed confidence the mild self-recharging hybrid system they’ve put into the flagship RS CR-V is good enough to keep the brand relevant against rivals with greater electric-only capability.

The CR-V RS edition’s e:HEV presents as a marriage of a petrol engine with twin electric motors; everything feeding the wheels via a simulated constantly variable transmission. The electric motors drive the wheels most of the time, with the petrol engine acting as a power station to keep the relatively small battery topped up. Only at higher speeds will the engine drive the wheels. Not an electric car, but still electric-involved and, as closed-loop set-ups go, it’s pretty techy. It has proven popular in the Jazz hatch and ZR-V compact sports utility.

CR-V has also launched with a 1.5-litre turbo petrol, married to an orthodox CVT, in five and seven-seat Sport fit-out. The first, which wasn’t on our launch, is the sole type with all-wheel-drive here. Otherwise it’s front-drive.

The car has been eagerly awaited. Honda NZ chief operating officer Peter Ashley says when the order book opened last Thursday, 110 confirmed sales were lodged within an hour. That’s an unsurpassed interest for any car it has sold. Ninety percent of those buy-ins were for the RS. Ashley is tipping 800 units sold within the next six months.

Nobuya Sonoda, HNZ’s managing director, says the high immediate interest raises potential that this sixth generation CR-V will maintain the type’s enviable record of being among the world’s best-selling sports utilities. 

The seven chair option is a first for the car - fitting in the third row demanded no change to the car’s bodywork, so it and the five-seaters are identical in exterior appearance.

Hyundai Santa Fe/Kia Sorrento, Mazda CX-60, Mitsubishi Outlander. Haval H6 and Volkswagen Tiguan are seen as CR-V rivals and most also provision in seven seat layouts.

Most also increasingly sell with hybrid systems, most with plug-in facility, albeit often well above the RS’s $67,000 sticker. The PHEV variants in particular were purpose selected for Honda NZ’s dealer level introduction to CR-V, Ashley has disclosed, so as to give the retail network the full skinny on what they’re up against. That would have been an interesting exercise.

CR-V also provisions in PHEV, also in five seat form, as e:HEV is (the drive battery’s position inhibits putting in a third row of chairs). However the closest right-hand-drive market for that type is half a world away, in the United Kingdom.

The variant’s designation as a Europe-prioritised product means it is out of Honda NZ’s reach, Ashley says.

The mains-fed derivative has the same 2.0-litre naturally-aspirated Atkinson cycle engine and dual electric motor provision as the e:HE here, but marries to a much larger battery; 17.7kWh versus 1.06kWh.

That means it can drive 82km on electric urge; well beyond the capability of the e:HEV, which has limited constantly electric pure drive drawing purely off the battery, and otherwise appears to match the NZ type with a total output of 135kW/335Nm.

Would it even be compelling to Kiwis? Ashley says the question is moot, but he argues e:HEV is an easier ownership proposition - feedback about PHEVs is that many user become tired of plugging in for mains replenishment. With e:HEV, there’s none of that faff. Operationally, they’re not really that far apart. Honda Japan also cites that the engine, in the main, isn’t working too hard, which means it rarely slurps.

“We are very happy with e:HEV. It’s great.”

He also points to hybrid CR-V’s competency in delivering good performance - important when the powertrain sits behind an RS badge - while being frugal. 

Those aspects came through on the launch event. Running an RS from Nelson to Hamner Springs, via Lewis Pass, delivered a economy of 7.7 litres per 100km in heavy rain and a touch of sleet and with some sections being driven briskly. 

That result was a 0.2L/100km edge over the alternate experience, the Sport seven seater, driven from Hamner to Christchurch; much less of a slalom run. In optimal condition, Honda cites the e:HEV as being good for 6.4L/100km - so, very close to the PHEV.

While Honda Japan’s long-term planning might one day allow the PHEV to hit more markets, in the meantime Honda NZ puts it in the same basket as the three full electrics it has in production - and the fourth, an electric concept of the NSX sports car, it is set to uncover at the Tokyo mobility show at the end of this month.

Ashley would love to have full electrics here, and is certainly savouring a fossil fuel-free supercar, but cannot see any quick or easy pathway.

Of the electrics already being made, Prologue is straight away ruled because it’s strictly for North America, so purely left-hand-drive at the moment. That could conceivably change as it is a co-development with General Motors, using the latter’s Ultium hardware. Which is also employed by Cadillac cars and a Chevrolet Silverado EV that increasingly seem possible to be built in right-hand-drive.

The best known of the battery pushes is the Honda-e. Kiwis can look out for this small city EV as it already represents as a grey import. Yet Honda Japan has ruled it out for export to this part of the world. 

The other candidate is the curiously named e:Ny1 (above), which has just hit the United Kingdom. It’s similarly sized to CR-V but a lot more expensive; if UK pricing applied here, it would start at well over $100k.

With that being the case, NZ’s hopes pin on a car that Honda is saying little about and certainly keeping out of public view - but will be ready for the world in 2026, says Ashley.

“There’s a potential for something in 2026 … outside of that square. We need an electric car by 2026.

“The technology is moving so fast that we don’t want to be in the position where we end up doing the wrong thing by our customers. We want them to have the latest technology and at the right price.

“We’d like to take whatever we can get ….”

Meantime, with the Odyssey now having been retired, the CR-V Sport seems set to be the sole seven-chair option in the Honda family for the foreseeable future. Ultimately, it’s thought, the brand will introduce an electric car with that seating plan; so creating a rival to the Kia EV9 that has just arrived here.

“There’s nothing in the immediate future but they (Honda) will look outside the box.”

Odyssey achieved modest interest in its final years; a victim of the whole shift away from PMV shapes, but Ashley can see the few remaining fans finding CR-V Sport just as useful. He imagines the interest base for the car will be broader than for Odyssey.

“There was always that ‘soccer mum’ mentality around Odyssey, albeit that it was an extremely good car. The look was MPV whereas this is SUV - more room, easier to get people in the back. It ticks the boxes.”

Meantime, the order bank already taken is expected to take a couple of months to fulfil, by which time the seven chair Sport and RS types here now will be joined by the five-seater Sport, the sole type with all-wheel-drive.