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2017 Honda Accord Hybrid First Drive

Honda waited until the Accord Hybrid was on sale for an entire month before inviting journalists out for a test drive. Usually, these events are previews, a chance for those in the industry to get an advance feel for what's about to go on sale. Not this time. The new 2017 Honda Accord Hybrid has been available at your local dealer for a month now. It's high time we got caught up. We were able to do just that at a drive event in Napa Valley last week. We can't say that the new Accord was a hoot to drive, but an Accord isn't supposed to be thrilling. It's supposed to sell boatloads of units a year, and that's why a hybrid version is so important. With ever-increasing fuel-efficiency standards coming around the world and an uncertain future when it comes to gas prices, having a car like this in the stable is obviously important. Of course, the future is only one side of the coin. As we said, the Accord Hybrid is on sale now, in a time of relatively low gas prices in the US, where sedan sales are being outpaced by CUV and SUV sales. This is the reality that the Accord Hybrid is facing. Honda, though, is confident. Just how good does the automaker think the new Accord Hybrid is? We'll guess about twice as good. That's because Honda execs said they expect to sell about 30,000 units a year, about double the volume of the 2014 Accord Hybrid. That's the official sales plan, anyway. The car went on sale June 15, 2016, so we're already off to the races. Sure, only 31 Accord Hybrids were sold in the second half of June, but we can't draw any conclusions this early in the process. Without a doubt, 30,000 sales is respectable for a hybrid (Toyota sold 30,640 Camry Hybrids in 2015), but let's just note for the record that Honda sold 355,557 Accords last year. If it manages to sell 30,000 Hybrids a year, and Accord sales numbers remain stable, that'll be just 8.4 percent of the overall total. The car should easily appeal to 30,000 buyers a year. The car should easily appeal to 30,000 buyers a year. The clean and attractive exterior design hasn't been massively overhauled from the 2014 Accord Hybrid, but why change what isn't broken? The headlights are updated, the front fascia has sharper lines, the taillights are more impressive – and that's about it.

2020 Toyota Highlander vs other 3-row crossovers: There can only be one!

We've done quite a few spec comparison posts involving three-row family crossovers, and when included, the Toyota Highlander has always been the runt of the group. While the rest increasingly seemed to be benchmarking each other toward greater girth, the Highlander was the outlier.  That changes a bit for the 2020 Toyota Highlander, but only a bit. It's now larger and more competitive, specifically in regards to the amount of cargo space aft of the third-row seat. As you can see below, this aligns the Highlander most closely to its long-time competitor the 2020 Honda Pilot. However, let's see how it stacks up to others in the segment, which is heavily populated now, so for the sake of space, we've selected the newest entries: Kia Telluride, Hyundai Palisade, Subaru Ascent and Ford Explorer. The order in which they are presented is random.  Performance and fuel economy The 2020 Highlander is more than 200 pounds lighter than its predecessor, but has the same 295-horsepower V6 engine that was already one of the strongest in the segment. We'd say that would give it a leg up, but the Pilot and Explorer have proven to be sprinters, delivering 0-60 times in the low-6 range by some publications' stopwatches (or VBoxes, whatever). We don't expect the Highlander to beat them, but it may dip into the 6's. The heavy, less-powerful Subaru Ascent is most likely to take up the rear. It's fuel economy of 23 mpg combined also matches the Highlander and Explorer for segment-best. Remember, however, that the Explorer's turbocharged inline-four engine is likely more susceptible to differences in driving style (read: a heavy foot).  Of course, if you're really interested in fuel economy, the Highlander and Explorer are the only vehicles in the segment to offer hybrid versions. The Ford Explorer Hybrid puts a greater emphasis on performance, however, resulting in lower estimates of 25 mpg combined (AWD) and 28 mpg combined (FWD). By contrast, the new 2020 Toyota Highlander Hybrid is estimated to return 36 mpg combined.  Passenger and cargo space According to Highlander chief engineer Yoshikazu Saeki, he had a choice of two directions with the new Highlander. He could have indeed made it bigger, matching these very competitors, especially in terms of third-row and cargo space. Or, he could have maintained a smaller-than-average size. He obviously chose the latter. First, it was the size customers had come to expect. Would they be put off by something bigger?

Honda reports $2.3 billion profit despite pandemic

TOKYO — Japanese automaker Honda reported Friday that its profit rose 23% in the last quarter, despite a pandemic that has slammed businesses around the world. Tokyo-based Honda said its July-September profit was 240.9 billion yen ($2.3 billion), up from 196.5 billion yen a year earlier, as the auto market recovered in some parts of the world. Honda said it carried out aggressive cost cuts that involved a “fundamental review” of its operations. The situation was also improving from earlier this year, when lockdowns and other problems related to COVID-19 caused disruptions of some production and an inventory crunch. Quarterly sales slipped to 3.65 trillion yen ($35 billion) from 3.73 trillion yen the same period a year earlier. Honda warned that uncertainty remains amid rising COVID-19 cases. But the company stressed it was managing to cling to profitability. Reflecting that upbeat mood, Honda raised its profit forecast for the fiscal year through March 2021 to 390 billion yen ($3.8 billion) from an earlier projection for 165 billion yen ($1.6 billion). The latest forecast is still lower than the 455.7 billion yen profit Honda booked in the previous fiscal year. Honda sold slightly more vehicles in the quarter through September at 1.25 million vehicles, compared to 1.24 million vehicles in the same period of 2019. But it sold fewer motorcycles at nearly 4.5 million motorcycles, down from nearly 5.1 million. Kohei Takeuchi, a senior Honda manager, said much of the damage to sales likely came from the pandemic, though he hesitated to blame the entire decline on the pandemic. Executive Vice President Seiji Kuraishi told reporters Honda is bullish on shifting its lineup to ecological models to keep up with the global efforts to curb carbon emissions and global warming. Also Friday, Toyota raised its full year fiscal forecasts to a 1.4 trillion yen ($13.5 billion) profit, after reporting results that appear to show a gradual but sure recovery. Its profit fell 11% in the last quarter. Nissan reports financial results next week. Related Video: Earnings/Financials Acura Honda