Honda Jazz EX Hybrid 2021
Only one week old, initial thoughts.
The good.
Incredibly spacious, its like a Tardis, we have come from a current model Mini, The Jazz is slightly narrower & few inches longer but the Jazz feels so much bigger. Although front legroom is a lot shorter in the Jazz.
Very economical, initial familiarisation run of about 60 miles on a mix of town and A & B roads that we know gave 75MPG ( on the computer so not an accurate number). This is the sort of driving we normally do so I’m sure Hondas claims will not be far off.
More impressive though was a 276 mile round trip yesterday 90% motorway & duel carriageway. No delays, so all done around the speed limit apart from about 20 miles of M25 busy,but flowing freely at about 60 MPH. The computer claims 59.9 MPG. This is not the sort of motoring this car was aimed at but I am very impressed with that.

Cannot give an actuate MPG as I don’t know if the dealer filled it to the brim. I need to fill it up and then measure although no more motorway trips planned yet.

Comfort is fine my wife & I were happy being in it for the 2.5 hours + each way on that journey

Performance is adequate, it moves off reasonably briskly & very smoothly.

It was very easy to connect two smartphones & stream music from Spotify wirelessly.

Its very easy to drive, Its a new way of driving. & its very easy. Seems very odd not having a rev counter ,it would mean nothing with this system. No temperature Gauge. - but I got used to no oil temp / pressure, so will get used to this.

The, I’m not sure about it, the not so good, & the bad ( some really bad)
* It is way too easy to switch the hazard lights on when using the touchscreen.
* The Satnav is not very easy to work, we have not figured it out yet.
* There are still a lot of things on the touchscreen that we don’t understand yet.

The gizmos-
* Road departure system- it cannot tell the difference between a groove in the road, a puddle, an undulation and the edge of the road. Its on by default & its fiddly to turn off. We might get used to it but i doubt it. I need to find the fuse.
* The other “On by default “ systems tend not to intrude so no issues.
* Traffic signal recognition is possibly helpful in a strange area.
* The speed limit system,we have used this in other cars ,in our experience it usually only needs a one button press, in the Jazz its two buttons.
* The automatic speed limit system is too sudden If you have a little too much throttle when you come out of a slower limit into a faster limit. But could be useful in a strange area just be sure to keep your distance.
* The really bad is the Cruise control ( after you have figured out how to use it) which slows you if you catch up with a slow mover.
Like all cruise controls it cannot anticipate. At least on a conventional cruise control if you start closing on another vehicle or you see a potential extreme manoeuvre, you know you have to disengage it - I rarely use them as it is constantly on,off, on, off, plus I can use less fuel driving it myself.
The Jazz though is frightening. I decided to try it & just let it do its thing. Initially Its all fine & it keeps you at a nice 2 + seconds ( I had it at maximum distance) from the car in front, I was actually thinking I might use this.
But then, I could see a situation developing but decided to see how the car dealt with it - big error. We were tootling along on a fairly busy motorway when we got the standard , “as you have left a nice gap I will pull into it even though you are going faster than me”- Or perhaps they did not even look.- Or perhaps they did look and thought it would be a good idea to cause somebody to slow down. - I’m not sure if any brain cells are activated when they do this.
What the other driver did was wrong but it happens a lot & it just needed a gentle ease off the throttle. Not with this Cruise control, it felt like it stood on the brakes in order to retain the gap ( I don’t know if the brake lights come on when it does this) Fortunately the car behind had left a good gap .
I know new technology often causes concerns,- remember seat belts & the number of people who thought they would do more harm than good. But until all cars have the same tech I can see this causing an accident. I will not use it again.

Overall, so far nice car, very happy. Just leave the gizmos off.