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Are you the 2014 Honda Fit?

Despite being the oldest model in North America's subcompact sweepstakes, the current Honda Fit remains a paragon in its segment, offering unparalleled packaging, good road manners and robust reliability. In fact, even with far more modern competitors like the Chevrolet Sonic, Ford Fiesta, Hyundai Accent and Nissan Versa Note on the scene, it may well still be the best of the bunch.
All of which explains why we're so nervous about the next-generation model, shown in these apparently leaked stock shots scanned from an in-country magazine (no, that rear end really isn't that wonky, it's the page curl distorting the image).
Will the next Fit retain the current car's incredible seating flexibility? Will it still offer a sweet-shifting manual transmission and a four-cylinder seemingly happy to bounce off its rev limiter all the livelong day? We won't know until we try it, but if these shots are representative of what we can expect in North America, it certainly will look very different. While the same two-box shape with roughly the same greenhouse remains, the front end looks much more aggressive than before, with squinty-eyed headlamps blending into a Civic-like grille, all sitting over a lower fascia with unusually oversized air intakes. The profile view is dominated by the front quarterlight and a new sharply rising character line that originates in the front fenders and terminates in the headlamps.

Honda, SolarCity expand sun-powered partnership with new $50 million fund

It must be solar-power announcement time. The DOE is ready to throw $25 million at concentrating solar power and New York State just announced $94 million for solar projects. At the broadly green-minded South By Southwest Eco festival in Austin, TX this week, Honda announced an expansion of its work with SolarCity to include a new fund that could finance up to $50 million in solar projects for dealerships and homes. Well, the homes of people who have purchased a Honda or Acura vehicle, at least. Stop us if this all sounds familiar. Honda and SolarCity announced back in early 2013 that they would work together on a $65-million fund to partially subsidize the installation of solar-panels at Honda dealers and on homes of Honda and Acura drivers. The new $50 million will be used to pay for not only the equipment but also the installation, which means that if you can get access to the money, you're looking at a pretty sweet 20-year lease deal to get solar energy for your home and could make it a bit more like the Honda Smart Home in Davis, CA (pictured). How sweet a deal? Well, there's zero down payment required and a 3-kW system starts could cost you just $25 a month, according to the fine print. Rates will vary, for sure, but if that sounds like something you're interested in, check out the Honda SolarCity site. The new fund builds on the previous work that, the two companies say, created enough solar capacity to offset "more than 400 million pounds of CO2 over a 30-year lifecycle." There's more in the press release below. SolarCity and Honda Announce $50 Million Commitment to Provide Solar Power to Honda and Acura Customers and Dealerships SAN MATEO and TORRANCE, Calif., Oct. 8, 2014 – Today, at the SXSW Eco conference in Austin, TX, SolarCity® (Nasdaq: SCTY) and Honda have renewed their partnership with a new fund expected to finance $50 million in solar projects. The new commitment will make solar power more affordable and available to Honda and Acura customers and dealerships in the U.S. The companies have completed or initiated a range of solar projects for homeowners, dealerships and corporate facilities that total more than 12.5 MW of solar generation capacity. The two companies have already brought enough solar capacity online to offset more than 400 million pounds of CO2 over a 30-year lifecycle . The $50 million fund is a follow-up to a $65 million fund the companies created in 2013.

2016 Honda Civic is a newly competitive compact [w/video]

It's fair to call the last-generation Honda Civic, built from 2012 to 2015 (with a quick refresher in the middle), a disappointment. It came out using an old compact car formula – going cheap and lightly equipped – at almost the exact moment its competitors embraced high technology and refined, expressive designs. We spent some time today with the vehicle meant to correct this mistake, the all-new, tenth-generation Civic. Easily the most discussed thing about the new Civic is its handsome new sheet metal, which we actually showed you last week. The expressive profile, with strong arches over the front wheels and a handsome, almost fastback-like roofline is a major departure from the duller, three-box look of the current Civic. The front fascia's highlight is the prominent chrome grille, backed by the optional LED headlights. In back, that tiny decklid is outshined – no pun intended – by a set of LED taillights that should present a very impressive look at night. The overall balance of the design is impressive. The ninth-generation Civic was widely panned for its crummy interior quality. Designed at a time of global financial crisis, Honda opted for more affordable materials that lacked the soft-touch goodness of many competitors. The new Civic addresses this shortcoming, fitting not only more impressive plastics, but the technology to back them up. From the EX trim on up, the instrument cluster's focal point is a large TFT display, flanked by a pair of traditional gauges. Yep, that's right. Honda is getting rid of the Civic's multi-tiered dash, and we couldn't be happier. On the center console, there's a seven-inch touchscreen display that uses the same Android-based operating system as the new Pilot. And speaking of Android, the Civic will play nice with both Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. As for the actual driving experience, we can't tell you much about it for another couple weeks, but we can talk briefly about the seats. The hip point has been dropped by a full inch in front, and has the effect of creating a sport-driving-ready seating position. Those seats are comfortable, too, although we'll need more than the few minutes we got with the new Civic to make an informed judgment. We don't, however, need any extra time to talk about the backseats. That plunging roofline is not conducive to rear headroom, a fact that overshadows the extra two inches of rear legroom. You're probably wondering when we'll talk about the powertrains.