This is in Japan for the up coming 2025

2025 - Japan


Honda Taiwan website



Taiwan - Specs

 

Ooh. Yes, please

 

Still not a terribly good looking car, but I'd rather have bought this than a Civic. That car is great, but straight up too big and expensive for what I need from our second car. Unfortunately, in America, when you pay less you don't get access to smaller cars these days. You just get crappier ones.

 

Everybody wants a big SUV nowadays, or a truck. The profit margin on a small car like this is trivial compared to what the manufacturers have become addicted to from those SUVs and trucks. The only thing that would bring back interest in small cars is a very serious recession/depression or a huge sustained surge in the price of gasoline (this not going to happen).

 

I guess I'm the exact opposite of "everybody." I grew up on a farm driving tractors and trucks and used to drive full-size trucks (up to 1-ton dually pulling 40+ foot trailers) for work. I have zero interest in any SUV or truck for everyday driving.

When I was a kid I had posters of Ferraris and Lamborghinis on my wall. Middle-age me would love to find a spare GE8 Fit or two to hide away and hopefully last me for the rest of my life.

 

Agree. Especially women. I don't know how the big truck thing is supposed to go with EV/climate crisis/fuel efficiency, but there's a lot of things I don't know.

 

it doesn't. the fallacy nobody wants to confront is that moving thousands of pounds of metal 10k miles a year is never going to be environmentally friendly. the environmentally friendly thing is to Not Go Anywhere. people will do all sorts of cockamime false solutions before ever considering doing that.

 

Absolutely. When I was a kid my dad liked to take us on Sunday drives in a late-80's Ford Econoline Van that probably got 15-16 mpg. We didn't have the money for fancy vacations, but we took lots of day-trips from our home. I have fond memories of those drives, but I choose to limit my driving as much as possible, combine trips when I can, use public transportation when available, and avoid/minimize short car trips (e.g., my 4 mile roundtrip into town for groceries or the public library can be done on the bicycle). Is that as easy as jumping in the car whenever I want a pack of chewing gum? Nope (because it's somehow uphill both ways!). Will I save the planet? Nope. Am I helping a tiny bit? I think so.

 

I was thinking we could put a dent in global warming if we had a five year global lockdown. Like in the pandemic, Not Go Anywhere, but for five years.

 

And no toilet paper! No eggs! No blah blah blah...

 

Regulatory capture in the EPA is to blame here. Years ago, fuel economy requirements were done as "fleet average" where manufacturers could sell gas guzzling models but had to balance it out with economical models. They whined, complained and lobbied their way out of that (which meant it was working) because they wanted to sell more of the $80k monstrosities seen on lots today. The current EPA gives fuel economy and emissions concessions based on a vehicle's footprint. Bigger vehicles are allowed to get worse fuel economy, and vise-versa small cars are required to get better fuel economy. Tightening the overall economy requirements "to save the environment" (/s) made compacts' and sub-compacts' economy requirements too high (requiring expensive hybrid tech, large EV batteries and the like) for the american buyers' price point. They regulated compact cars and trucks out of existence while opening the gates to today's behemoths.

 

If large vehicles were really what people wanted, they would all be driving RVs and and busses and semi trucks. It's not the largeness per se, but the appearance of luxury. Large, wasteful billboard vehicles will continue to be popular until waste becomes unpopular, or they're regulated.

 

The appearance of luxury is definitely part of it. But timid, scared, bad drivers feel safe if their car is larger than everyone else's in traffic. People tell me all the time. "What if I get t-boned by one of those big trucks!? I need a big 'SUV' (wagon)."

Also I saw a bunch of those new Fits in Tokyo in '23. They are small, maybe GE small. Sure would be cool...

 

If the Fit were a pickup:
Well, if the Fit had stupid amounts of power on tap anyway.

 

Women like to sit up high and have lots of cupholders. They also believe that the bigger it is, the safer it is. Beyond that, the usual status and fashion trends apply.

 

Not sure I'd limit the stated preferences and beliefs to just half of humankind. Plenty of guys like a commanding view and there is a little something to the bigger, the safer. Not that I want to take part in that arms race, but physics is hard to understand sometimes.

 

That's exactly what it is. More mass has more inertia which reduces the instantaneous forces on (and therefor injuries to) the occupants of the massive vehicle. It also increases the amount of energy involved in the collision, putting anyone outside the massive vehicle in that much more danger. It's that me-and-mine-above-all mentality.

 

Agreed.

It's a nuanced discussion. Nevertheless, a few points:

— Most men want to drive when they are driving. Most women want to eat and play with their phones while they are driving.

— I think it is unsafe to have "cars" the size of small houses on the road because all you can see in front of you is the back of the car/small house. Safe driving involves looking ahead.

— In the hands of someone who knows how to drive and is paying attention, maneuverability is safer than momentum.

— When women are sold a house-like "car," they are told: "Don't worry. It's just like driving a car." Only it's not at all like driving a car because it's a truck, not a car. And they do not bother to learn how to drive a truck.

— Men nowadays are not men. They are millennials and Gen Z. They've been feminized by the culture. Naturally, they want "cars" like women have, and they want to drive like women.

 

Spoken like a true toxic masculine.

 

Thank you. Mister Coffee's logic infers that all the drivers of Fits with automatics or CVTs are inferior to drivers of Fits with stick shifts because not having to shift by hand and foot means those drivers must be more interested in eating and playing with their phones than driving. Utter bulls#!+.