Honda Accord Hybrid

Here’s the formula for the Honda Accord Hybrid: take the second best-selling car in the country, offer it with as many luxury features as possible, and soup it up to make it faster than any other family sedan on the market. This approach—using hybrid technology to boost performance and to only moderately improve fuel economy—caught car reviewers and hybrid fans by surprise when the Accord Hybrid was introduced in Nov. 2004. Aren't hybrids supposed to be small, underpowered, econoboxes with great fuel economy?

One headline read, "Sips Gas. Hauls Ass." Environmentalists pinned the term "muscle hybrid" on the Accord. David Welch of BusinessWeek, as if shocked, wrote, "The car bursts onto the road. Yea, this car—an environmentally friend and fuel-efficient hybrid—really did burn a little rubber.”

Another First for Honda

Honda was the first to introduce a hybrid in the U.S. market: Honda Insight. They were the first to offer a hybrid version of a conventional vehicle: Honda Civic Hybrid. And suddenly, they were the first to show that hybrids could offer more performance, more amenities, and better fuel efficiency than other vehicles in its class.

"Hybrid" wasn't the point. The point was that a Honda salesman could point Accord shoppers to an option with a 9 mpg boost in city mileage and a 15 horsepower boost in performance—all for a couple of thousand dollars more than the standard package. Honda set the realistic modest goal of selling 20,000 Accord Hybrids for the 2005 model year. The company seemed content to sell the premium hybrid option to relatively few customers—allowing Toyota to bask in the hybrid glory.

By the end of 2005, Honda sold more Accord Hybrids than Ford sold Escape Hybrids, and with a lot less fanfare (and green washing). The fact that sales were not nearly as brisk as the Prius's didn't mean that Accord Hybrid drivers aren't happy. By all reports, they are ecstatic. Dr. Oliver Sachs, who wrote The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, loves his. The Accord Hybrid converted auto economist Dr. Walter McManus (a blogger on this site) from a hybrid naysayer to a hybrid advocate. And Dr. Leon S.—he's not famous, but he is a doctor—who found the Prius and Civic short on power and amenities, finds his AH a pleasure to drive.

Comparison with Camry Hybrid

For more than a year, the Accord Hybrid stood alone as the only hybrid in the family sedan category. That changed in mid-2006 when the Camry Hybrid burst on the scene. The size and shape of the two vehicles will leave few surprising distinctions for shoppers. The real story is in the technology. The Camry uses a smaller engine with a more robust full-hybrid system to produce better fuel economy results in the city, but less overall power. The Accord utilizes a milder hybrid system with a larger engine (that allows three of the engine's six cylinders to shut down during highway cruising) to produce a lot of power, with respectable fuel economy.

In its first month, the Camry became the second best-selling hybrid behind the Prius—while the Accord languished on dealership lots. Apparently, Honda's fast six-cylinder family hybrid wasn't what the doctor ordered for the national ailment of high gas prices. But the Camry Hybrid, with its more modest four cylinders and more daring city mileage of 43 mpg, came just in time.

By the fall of 2006, Toyota was consistently selling ten times more Camry Hybrids than Honda was unloading Accord Hybrids. The experiment of using hybrid technology to boost performance, rather than improve fuel efficiency, backfired in the marketplace. Time will tell if Honda learned its lesson, and offers the next Accord Hybrid with four cylinders—and kick-ass gas mileage.