Honda’s venerable hatchback sees big changes for 2015. How big? How about a new platform, new engine and transmissions, and a new look. The new 5-door is 1.6 inches shorter than the outgoing model, but also weighs in at 100 pounds more, due to more substantial use of high-strength steel in its construction, which provides significantly bolstered chassis rigidity for added safety and improved handling. Despite its shrinking dimensions, the Fit’s new platform actually expands on both front and rear passenger space dramatically.
This is a car we really could live with. Our tester, a Sport Navi trim, costs just $20,480 including destination charges. If you ask us, that’s not too bad for a car with all the stuff we need, and none of the stuff we don’t. The navigation features voice controls, there’s a decent setup for audio controls on the steering wheel, and Bluetooth and USB audio come standard at this level. In addition, the cost of living with the Fit remains low, with its EPA-estimated 27 miles per gallon city, and 33 mpg highway.
The Jaguar XKR-S represents a kind of supercar that is, at once, both strange to conceive and utterly approachable. That is has legitimate supercar credentials is undeniable: massively fast, quick off the line, spectacular handling both on a track and on the road, gut-churningly beautiful to behold, and significantly more rare than even other fast Jags. And yet, there’s nothing intimidating about the driving experience, unless you happen to be scared off by loud internal combustion engines (in which case this isn’t the article for you, anyway).
The Fit EV retains many of the gasoline-powered Fit’s redeeming qualities, while creating a niche and a personality all its own. Driven by a 92-kilowatt AC electric motor and supported by a 20-kWh lithium-ion battery, the EV has an EPA-certified unadjusted range of 132 miles in the city, and an adjusted range—adjusted to better reflect real world driving—of 82 miles of combined city and highway driving. That figure gives the Fit EV the edge versus its competitors: the Nissan Leaf (73 miles), Ford Focus EV (76 miles), and Mitsubishi i-MiEV (62 miles).
Even though the original Fit debuted in 2001, we Americans were deprived of the little Honda that could until it finally arrived Stateside in 2006. After years of successful sales in Japan and Europe (where it sold as the Jazz) the folks at Honda decided to see how the diminutive hatchback would do in the bigger-is-better United States auto market. At that time, a gallon of regular unleaded still cost less than three dollars and consumers were lined up for miles waiting for new crossovers and sport-utilities to hit dealer lots. Not even Honda had anticipated that the Fit would sell roughly 80,000 units each year in America.