Honda was the primary automotive producer to promote a manufacturing hybrid-electric automotive in the USA, with the Perception beating the Prius to showrooms right here by practically a 12 months. Few remembered that a few years later, as soon as the Prius grew to become an enormous gross sales success and even after Honda launched the Civic Hybrid as a 2003 mannequin. Honda upped its hybrid sport for the 2005 mannequin 12 months, when the primary Accord Hybrids appeared right here. Here is a kind of automobiles, present in a Denver-area self-service automotive graveyard not too long ago.
We have been looking at discarded examples of a number of the unique hybrid machines from the center 2000s, together with the Saturn Vue Inexperienced Line and the Nissan Altima Hybrid, and I am maintaining my eyes open for pure electrical automobiles within the boneyards I frequent. In spite of everything, these articles are all about gems of automotive historical past.
The 2005-2007 Accord Hybrid had a robust 3.0-liter V6 below its hood, rated at 255 horsepower and 232 pound-feet, supplemented by a 13.8 kW electrical motor that added 16.1 horsepower and 100 pound-feet. A five-speed computerized was necessary. The end result was a respectably fast automotive that delivered 28 mixed miles per gallon, beating the four-cylinder Accord with guide transmission by two mpg and the non-hybrid V6 Accord with computerized by six mpg.
Sadly for Honda, the 2005 Accord Hybrid’s $30,140 MSRP ($48,481 in 2024 {dollars}) was $3,290 extra ($5,292 after inflation) than that of the non-hybrid Accord EX that 12 months. Gross sales have been poor as automotive consumers did the maths and determined the additional energy and modest financial savings on gasoline prices weren’t value it; maybe they felt otherwise when gasoline costs went loopy in 2007 and 2008.
Toyota started promoting its Camry Hybrid in the USA as a 2007 mannequin, the final 12 months for this technology of Accord Hybrid. Honda revived the Accord Hybrid for the 2014 mannequin 12 months (one 12 months after the introduction of the nearly-forgotten Volkswagen Jetta Hybrid).
First to supply three hybrid fashions (although the first-generation Perception was discontinued right here after 2006).