The 2018 Honda Vezel (2018 Honda HR-V) is now on
sale in Japan. The mid-life refresh brings minor design revisions and equipment
changes to the mini-SUV.
At the front, the 2018 Honda Vezel features a more
upright upper grille that flows into the new LED headlamps, sharper bumper, new
fog light housing and revised lower grille. The new front-end looks a little
more dynamic, mainly because of the revisions to the headlamps and the bumper,
but there are no drastic changes. At the rear, a thin chrome strip connects the
tail lamps.
Inside, Honda has changed the shape of the front
seats to improve comfort and introduced a new 7-inch HD touchscreen
infotainment system that features not only navigation and voice control, but
also Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Honda Sensing, previously unavailable in
the basic grades, is now standard. False Backward Start Prevention and Auto
High Beam, which are available even in the tiny Honda N-Box, are still excluded
from the list of functions of the Honda Vezel’s Honda Sensing safety suite,
though.
The 2018 Honda Vezel is available with 1.5-litre
i-VTEC petrol and 1.5-litre i-VTEC (petrol+electric) hybrid engines carried
over from the old model. The maximum power and maximum torque figures have
remained unchanged, but Honda has made changes to make the drive more
comfortable and efficient.
In the hybrid model, the company has retuned the
Sport Hybrid i-DCD system to provide smoother acceleration and smoothed out the
brake feel. In the petrol model, it has added vibration damping material and
reviewed the fuel pump inside the engine to make the cabin quieter. Reduced cam
chain friction has increased the fuel economy (JC08 mode) from 20.6 km/l to
21.2 km/l. Lastly, the 4WD system now offers a more reliable and better quality
ride when turning on snow and climbing uphill.
