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By GARY S. VASILASH, Editor-In-Chief
Koji Ninomiya has spent much of his career at Honda working
on Accords. As the large project leader for the 2014 Accord
Hybrid, his depth of knowledge of what was then a benchmark
vehicle is profound. And so he and his team had to work even
harder to best what was already class-leading. The ninth gener-
ation Accord sedan, upon which the Hybrid is based, is, like
Accords throughout its history, often thought of in the context
of its quality, durability and reliability (QDR). Yet Ninomiya says
that the "grand theme" for the development of the 2017 Accord
Hybrid contained three key words, none of which sound even
faintly like those of QDR.
Rather, they are: Fun. Advanced. Environment. The last first.
Obviously, the whole purpose of having a hybrid powertrain is
to achieve greater fuel efficiency. Yet hybrids have been on the
market for a sufficiently long time such that efficiency has to
come with performance.
Honda has been in the hybrid space for quite a while, with the
Insight on the market in the U.S. in 1999 (which even beat the
Toyota Prius in the U.S. market). Honda had an Accord hybrid
HYBRID
From a design perspective, the 2017 Honda Accord Hybrid is pretty much
like the non-hybrid versions of the sedan. The aluminum hood has a
different shape. There are blue accents on the front grille, the headlights
and taillights. Speaking of lights: there are LED daytime running lights,
taillights and fog lights for all trims and LED headlights for the Touring
trim. There are unique 17-inch aluminum alloy wheels.
For model year 2014 Honda came out
with a two-motor hybrid system for
the Accord. For model year 2017
Honda went back at the system and
provided improvements to what was
already a segment-leading system.
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AD&P; ∕ SEPTEMBER 2016
HONDA ACCORD