The Honda Fit has long been a popular choice in the subcompact world. It offers flexible seating, decent styling, reasonable-ish pricing, good fuel economy, and respectable performance. It doesn’t excel in any one area, but it’s a pretty balanced competitor. Honda decided to ratchet up the fuel economy part in a big way – by creating a Fit EV.

Similar to the Nissan Leaf, the 2013 Fit EV is full electric – there is no gas engine to be found. Honda expect the EPA to rate the Fit EV for 76 (combined) miles per charge. That’s three miles more than the Leaf is rated, by the way.

2013 Honda Fit Quick Specs

• 20 kWh Lithium Ion battery pack
• 92 kW electric motor
• Full charge on 240 volts in 3 hours 1
• Seating for five.

The Fit EV will launch slowly, in selected markets, just like the Volt and Leaf. The introductory lease special will be about $399 per month, with an unspecific amount down. Buyers will also need to have a 240 volt charger installed, which adds to the setup costs. Fortunately, the chargers are standard, and all current electric cars use the same charger port.

Here’s the problem

Honda plans to produce just 1,100 Fit EV’s. Ever. Perhaps they aren’t sure how to make money on an EV quite yet. I don’t know either, but I know that scale is required. They are going to lose quite a bit of money on this project by keeping the volume so low. Perhaps it’s just a ploy to get their CAFE numbers up.

2013 Honda Fit EV Gallery

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Oops. The Japanese Honda site leaked official photos of the upcoming 2012 Honda CR-V. The bad news? Well, it just plain isn’t that exciting. It’s not a big departure in the looks department from the current CR-V. it’s a nice enough vehicle, to be sure. Just not exciting.

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Honda has released some official images of the 2012 Pilot. You would be forgiven if you couldn’t tell the difference between the 2011 and 2012 Pilots. There’s a slightly revised front fascia across the board, and new wheels on the EX and higher models. There’s a little more going on inside, with a revised center console and instrument panel.

The only reason not to be bored to death is that Honda managed to squeeze a few more em-pee-gees out of the 2012 Pilot. Instead of the 17 mpg city / 23 mpg highway / 19 mpg combined from the 2011 model, the 2012 Pilot manages to get 18 mpg city / 25 mpg highway / 21 mpg combined. That won’t get anyone talking in today’s world, especially with the more efficient numbers found elsewhere.

So all in all… it’s a ho-hum update. Not terrible, but not terribly exciting either.

2012 Honda Pilot Gallery

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Like any mainstream Honda concept, the 2012 CR-V Concept is 99% likely to be the production vehicle. Once you take off the fancy wheels and shiny bits, of course. For the most part, there’s nothing suprising here. It’s a similar design to the outgoing CR-V, though the rear quarter is a little funky. Not sure if I like it… but I’m definitely not the target buyer for this vehicle anyway.

There is no word on specs yet, but you can count on there being a single four-cylinder engine offered, with your choice of FWD or AWD. The rumormill says to expect a six speed automatic as an upgrade from the current 5. A welcome change, but also not surprising.

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Honda just released the 2012 Civic, but they have already issued the first recall. 1,156 vehicles are potentially affected by this problem – a possible fuel leak. A particular O-ring (which seals a connection in the fuel line) is misaligned on certain vehicles.

Honda will be sending out notices to affected owners soon. As usual, repairs will be handled by dealers at not cost to Civic owners.

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Owners of 2006-2007 Honda Civic Hybrids should keep an eye on their mailboxes. Honda is recalling 36,700 of these vehicles to replace the DC to DC converter. This part of the IMA hybrid system is responsible for charging the 12 volt battery.

The faulty unit that some of these vehicles has could fail, causing your vehicle to stall. Not a big deal if you’re crusing around town, but potentially a disaster at highway speeds. In any case, Honda is issuing the recall, and if your vehicle is affected you should know within the next few weeks.

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The 2012 Honda Civic is a concept no more – you’re looking at the official production model. Just as expected, it’s nearly identical to the concept version that we saw recently. Unfortately, Honda did tone down the Si model, as it has a traditional offset rear exhaust. Not exactly a surprise, however.

2012 Honda Civic Specs

• 140 HP 1.8 liter i-VTEC 4 cylinder engine
• 5 speed automatic transmission
• 39 MPG highway

Those specs are for the “regular” Civic – though there are three more flavors. The Si is back, of course, with a shiny new 2.4 liter engine. It’s good for 200 horsepower, but the real store is the huge torque increase – it makes 170 lb-ft to be exact. Plus is manages to get better mileage (31 MPG highway) than the outgoing model. Call me a sucker, but it’s hard to argue with a bigger, more powerful engine that gets better fuel economy.

Besides the vanilla and Si models, there’s a new HF trim. Imagine a Civic Hybrid without, well, the hybrid bits. That’s basically the HF. It uses all the Hybrid aerodynamic tricks to snag a 41 MPG highway rating. Not too shabby for a compact car.

Lastly, that brings us to the 2012 Civic Hybrid. This is the first Civic to use a lithium ion battery pack – lithium ion is much more efficient, of course. That means a more powerful battery in a smaller, lighter package. The 110 combined HP powertrain (1.5 liter 4 cylinder plus electric motor) scores a solid 45 MPG combined fuel economy rating. That’s up quite a bit (4MPG) from last year as well.

That about wraps it up. Good (if not new) looks. Great choices of powertrains. Expected great reliability. Hard not to like this one, even if it didn’t’ blow me away.

2012 Honda Civic Gallery

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Just like I mentioned in my original 2012 Civic writeup, it’s no concept. It’s pretty much the real deal, with possibly some very minor changes. The release date is much sooner than expected though – Autoweek expects a launch this April. In fact, they expect every single variant of the new Civic to be launched in rapid succession – not spread out like Honda usually does.

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AutoObserver on the 2012 Civic styling:

The conservative tack will offend no one, proving no threat to the impressive sales volumes. Honda may instead have to rely on its platinum brand equity and perhaps inspiring powertrain and chassis tuning performance to begin to re-ignite the Civic’s stagnant sales curve.

Echoes my sentiments. There’s nothing new here style-wise. Good thing Honda still has that bullet proof reputation.

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Honda is showing off what it calls concepts of the 2012 Civic. Given that it’s early 2011, it’s likely that these are pretty close to what you’ll be able to buy later this year.

The Coupe

Is Honda bold enough to bring that sexy center exhaust to production? I doubt it. But doggone it looks good. Overall the design is clearly an evolution from the current design – there’s nothing revolutionary here, besides the aforementioned center exhaust. That, and the sexy black roof. A black roof on a brightly colored car just looks amazing.

The Sedan

Again, evolutionary. There’s nothing exceptional going on here. The black roof again looks amazing, and I hope it makes it to production. The sedan doesn’t get the center exhaust, though. Nothing surprising about that.

Overall, the concepts look good. My only concern is that they aren’t very different from the current Civic. This would be a bigger problem if the Civic wasn’t the best looking compact sedan on the market. It is, so Honda is starting off with a great look. I just don’t want to see the competition pass them up.

2012 Honda Civic Concept Gallery

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