Kaido
Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
My face hurts from grinning 😀
My buddy just took delivery of his 2013 Fit EV lease, and being such a nice day out, we just had to take it out for a joyride and grab some ice cream. The local place is 9 miles away, so it was an 18-mile roundtrip. With 30 miles left on the battery, we figured we'd give it a shot! Here's a picture of it charging up on the 120V 3-prong connection - the charging port is on the front driver's side and opens via the keyfob where the trunk release button normally is:
http://i.imgur.com/ua15xWL.jpg
He drove on the way there and gave me an overview of the Fit. It sits an inch or two higher than my 2010 ICE Fit did, and the magic seats are gone due to the battery pack. The back seats still fold down, just not completely flat. It only comes in a (gorgeous) blue and is fully-loaded - really nice rims, great stereo, backup camera, Bluetooth calling & audio streaming, cruise control, the works. The seats are very firm with great lumbar support and are made from sugarcane (yes, the plant). More details are available on the official website here: ($259/mo, limited states, lease only, all maintenance except for tires covered)
http://automobiles.honda.com/fit-ev/
The front houses the motor and other goodies, unlike the Tesla S which has a front trunk (frunk) AND a rear trunk. It almost looks like a gas engine with all of the cabling and smaller battery up front:
http://i.imgur.com/bmpbkFQ.jpg
The entire car is mostly the same as a regular Fit, just tuned for an electric motor. The first thing that really struck me was that this was an actual car, not a made-for-electric car. All they did was retrofit an existing Fit, so you got great headroom, nice seats, a usable trunk, all of the features you would have in a normal car without sacrifices. It looks like a Fit, it drives like a Fit (well, better - more on that later), and aside from the silver "EV" lettering on the side & lack of a tailpipe (and noise of any kind), you'd be hard-pressed to tell a difference from the gas-burning version.
One of the downsides is that at the end of the lease, Honda will destroy the car in the name of science (it gets disassembled for review). So you can't buy it off-lease (heck, you can't buy it at all - it's only available as a 3-year lease) and it gets scrapped for testing once you're done with. And if you move, you have to give the car back (no penalty for early return due to moving out of state), because you can only lease it in the supported states. Also, you have to sign a disclosure that Honda gets to see all of the data from the car - there's a data antenna that transmits the car's statistics to Honda wirelessly every few minutes. CoughPRISMcough.
So with all that aside - the second that struck me is just how amazingly QUIET this car is. There's no electric whine like I was expecting. You do hear the motor at times, but it's a more comforting Stat Trek-esqe sound than an annoying high-pitched whistle. I actually really like the sound of it, but again, you can only hear it at certain times, especially with the windows rolled down. There's a bit of tire noise but mostly it's just semi-insulated wind noise. Even with the windows rolled down, it's not noisy at all. You really do feel like you're driving a vehicle from the future, it's just SO nice! Plus being your own gas station is just awesome:
http://i.imgur.com/xPvsxQh.jpg
One of the neat things is stopping - if you've ever been to a concert where the choir stopped sharply on the last note and it left that ringing echo of silence that almost makes your ears pop, that's exactly what happens when you do a full stop in the Fit EV - it goes from quiet to absolutely dead silent. On our trip back, it was nighttime and when we stopped at a light, we literally heard crickets. It was awesome! It's very disconcerting starting it up, and coming to a full stop, because you feel like you've stalled the engine - that dreaded silence that comes from popping the clutch or losing power in a gasoline-powered car that makes your heart stop, haha.
So going along with the overall quiet ride is the smoothness. It's amazingly smooth - smoother even than the newer-generation CVT transmissions I've driven in. I was not expecting it to be that smooth at all! But even with cruise control on, when you tap the + and - buttons to adjust the speed, there's no jerk - just silky smoothness. Also there are 3 driving modes - ECON, Normal, and Sport. You usually drive around in Normal unless you need to save juice in ECON mode. Sport mode does make it zippier, particularly on the highway, but I was just fine around the city in Normal mode.
For the first leg of our trip, we went to another town, which was mostly downhill. The Fit EV has regenerative braking which operates in 2 modes - regular "Drive" and "B". B-mode is basically like a low gear, which acts like engine braking. So not only is it better on hills because it's basically like down-shifting, but you also get more juice back into the battery from it. It's actually really nice to drive in, although it takes some getting used to, because it brakes for you as you drive. So push down to accelerate, lift off the accelerator pedal to slow down to a stop. If you plan out your stop signs & stop lights, it can be extremely beneficial to the battery. We gained a couple miles of range (the range meter is right on the dashboard) using this technique.
Both the performance and the range are definitely better in the city. I think we only used about 5 miles of range driving through the backgrounds thanks to the regenerative braking giving us back power, even after getting lost in suburbia for awhile :biggrin: The power band is the strongest in the 0 to 30 range. It has plenty of pep from 0 to 50 too, but as you get past 50 it starts wimping out. It just barely crosses the line at what I'd call "acceptable" for highway performance - just slightly better than a Prius. Yes, you can pass people, but not as quickly as I like. Also, I lost 2 miles of range passing 2 cars at 65 MPH to 75 MPH. It's supposed to be around 1:1 on the highway, but I think it's more like 1.5 once you get past 60 MPH or so.
It is absolutely a conversation starter. People were coming out to look at it wherever we stopped. Lots of smiles, lots of staring. It doesn't look any different than a regular Fit other than the silver EV sticker on the side (which is small), but it is an eye-catching car in the extremely nice blue. It was fun geeking out and explaining how things worked in it!
http://i.imgur.com/IEq0KTx.jpg
I took the wheel for the trip home - partly city and partly highway. You can definitely peel out in it. Also, it will throw you back in your seat when you gun it (not as hard as say a Jetta TDI, but it does have oomph!). The initial pedal press is a bit hard, but after that it's just power, power, power. SMOOTH power! Oh my gosh, this is the nicest car I've ever driven. I can't even tell you how awesome it is to drive. For starters, no noise. Then there's the steering - the gas Fit is nice & tight, but this is insane - tighter & smoother than a Prius (if you've ever driven one), just like playing a video game. It does EXACTLY what you want it to do. It drives like it's on rails - like a monorail, in fact. You can take your hands off at 65 MPH on the highway and it doesn't budge.
Part of that is because there's a 640-pound battery sitting underneath you. So it's like having a giant anti-sway bar. I took an exit ramp from one highway to another at 50 and gunned it up to 65 and it just stayed absolutely planted. Felt really, really good to drive, extremely connected to the road. You can steer with your pinky (I can say that because I did!) at any speed without a hitch. The acceleration is the same way - it's like the best CVT you'll ever drive. It just does exactly what you tell it to. Like I said, city driving is the most fun because it's crazy zippy up to about 30 MPH. Up to 50 it has guts, but beyond that it kind of goes into boring territory.
The tech is nice. Touchscreen is okay, I'm glad it had buttons on the radio area. The GPS looked stupidly outdated (1995-era map graphics lol), so we just used my iPhone for navigation. The backup camera is great, although the car's visibility is so good you don't really need it at all. The HVAC is really cool - there's a round gauge with the temperature, and a red up button for heat and blue down button for cool. Very easy! The leather-wrapped steering wheel felt very nice. I didn't try out a Bluetooth call, but I bet it would have been great because of how ridiculously quiet it was inside. I can't stress enough how much it feels like you're driving a car from the future - like going to the Epcot Center as a kid where you see all of the future tech and think, that's amazing! I want that someday! Well, today was someday - my first ride & drive in an all-electric car! 🙂 Also there is a neat dongle in addition to the standard key/keyfob - it's a little remote that lets you check on the battery charge percentage and also pre-cool the car with the fan:
http://i.imgur.com/VXNG5hC.jpg
There is also an iPhone app, although it has terrible reviews that say it doesn't work: (didn't try it)
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hondalink-ev/id542703745?mt=8
My buddy rotates it through his family members throughout the week (it's a work commuter during the week and then a fun vehicle during the weekend) and so far they like it so much that they are considering leasing a second one. They do have a gas backup car, so it's not an issue if they run out of juice and still need a ride somewhere. You can pretty much do a 40-mile roundtrip with it (they took it 80 miles on the highway today for the first trip and still had 8 miles left), although in winter the battery life drops to 30 to 40 miles. However, you can plug into any 3-prong outlet (15-hour time to full charge) and they already have public fast-chargers (240V for a 3-hour full charge) at places like Panera Bread.
So on the way home, I hopped on the highway and played around with it there. It's fabulous on the highway, really my only complaint was that you can't really goose it at 50+ MPH. Yes, it can pass, sort of like a small 4-cylinder engine with the A/C on high on a hot day, if you've ever experienced that - not exactly sluggishly, but not as quick as you'd like. But not scary like the Prius I drove, at least. It was so smooth & quiet that I felt like I was on one of those rides at Disney World on rails. So...we had a 10-mile trip home via the highway and 19 miles left on the "tank". I burned through 2 of those miles passing cars on the highway. Eek. After playing around some more, and with the lights on for nighttime driving, our range continued to drop. We got off the highway and decided to take the backroads home.
2 miles from home, the battery dropped to 1 mile of range. Boy, talk about range anxiety! Holy cow! Haha. Fortunately there were a lot of hills, so we'd go up the hills, then use the regenerative braking to get back up to 2 miles of range. It does kick off warnings on the dashboard about being ultra-low and kills the radio on you. We were wondering what would happen after that last mile ran out, but fortunately we made it to the driveway - WHEW! Since it was already 11pm at night, we decided we didn't want to push it home in the dark, so we didn't drive around anymore to kill the remaining mile. Thank goodness for B-mode and regenerative braking, haha!
http://i.imgur.com/sPLksn6.jpg
That was definitely an experience - I was okay at 2 miles because we could make it home easily, but when it hit 1 mile at 2 miles out, my heart definitely started to race. We had no idea what would actually happen when it lost power, so it was a pretty tense ride home! Plus my iPhone was at 4% battery too and we didn't have my car charger in the Fit EV, so we would have been out of juice in both the car and the phone haha. I can really see the value in a gas-assisted vehicle like the Chevy Volt, where if you run out of battery juice, you can roll on gasoline for backup and FILL UP if you need to! In this car, that's it, no hope - you need a tow or a plug. I was in love with the car until that last mile hit me - I decided even if my workplaces put chargers in, it'd still be too tight for me - if I had a 265-mile-range Tesla S, sure, no problem, but an 82-mile Fit EV...yikes! For my buddy & his family, it works out great because they're only 5 to 10 miles from most of the places they go, so their round trip is typically less than 20 miles per outing, which is only a quarter of the advertised EPA-rated range. So even in winter, they'll still have a minimum of 10 miles of extra range if they drop to 30 miles fully-charged for a large amount of their trips, and they still have their ICE vehicles for backup.
My conclusion is that this is a great second car for careful people. This is not a car for someone who does not pay attention, because you WILL be left stranded on the side of the road with no miles left to drive if you don't plan out your trips. This is not a good primary car because you can't just "go anywhere" in it - to the emergency room if you need to, on a long trip if you want to - it would only be a good primary car for very, very few people, like if you live in a dense city and don't travel very far during the day. With my spirited driving, I would not want this car due to the limited range - I'd burn it up too quickly. My daily round trip is between 40 and 50 miles, plus sometimes site-to-site visits, so even with chargers at work, I'd be too nervous about cutting through the range too quickly, like if there's road delays and I'm sitting idling with the A/C on for too long (not sure how much that affects battery life, but I'm sure it's a pretty significant drain).
So, if you meet the criteria - it's an exceptional machine. Oh boy, it just blew my little mind. My face literally hurts because I've been smiling so much, haha. It was a wonderful experience to take a drive in and I would really love to have one at some point when the range gets longer. If it had a 100-mile range and there were chargers everywhere, I would probably bite the bullet & do it. As it stands now, the only option that would work for me is a Tesla with a 200+ mile range, but at $55k to $108k even after the $7500 CT tax credit, well - that buys a lot of gasoline 😀 My buddy calculated out that he's pretty much breaking even with the lease, included maintenance, reduced insurance (Honda covers collision), and electricity charging cost, so it's not like it's a huge cost savings to go from a paid-off gas car to a leased electric car, but it might work out financially to your benefit depending on your situation.
TL;DR -
1. Fantastically quiet
2. Best car I have EVER driven - ultra-smooth acceleration, drives like it's on rails, turns with a pinky finger
3. It MUST fit your lifestyle and you MUST be a careful person for it to work (range limitations)
http://i.imgur.com/tB38JYP.jpg
My buddy just took delivery of his 2013 Fit EV lease, and being such a nice day out, we just had to take it out for a joyride and grab some ice cream. The local place is 9 miles away, so it was an 18-mile roundtrip. With 30 miles left on the battery, we figured we'd give it a shot! Here's a picture of it charging up on the 120V 3-prong connection - the charging port is on the front driver's side and opens via the keyfob where the trunk release button normally is:
http://i.imgur.com/ua15xWL.jpg
He drove on the way there and gave me an overview of the Fit. It sits an inch or two higher than my 2010 ICE Fit did, and the magic seats are gone due to the battery pack. The back seats still fold down, just not completely flat. It only comes in a (gorgeous) blue and is fully-loaded - really nice rims, great stereo, backup camera, Bluetooth calling & audio streaming, cruise control, the works. The seats are very firm with great lumbar support and are made from sugarcane (yes, the plant). More details are available on the official website here: ($259/mo, limited states, lease only, all maintenance except for tires covered)
http://automobiles.honda.com/fit-ev/
The front houses the motor and other goodies, unlike the Tesla S which has a front trunk (frunk) AND a rear trunk. It almost looks like a gas engine with all of the cabling and smaller battery up front:
http://i.imgur.com/bmpbkFQ.jpg
The entire car is mostly the same as a regular Fit, just tuned for an electric motor. The first thing that really struck me was that this was an actual car, not a made-for-electric car. All they did was retrofit an existing Fit, so you got great headroom, nice seats, a usable trunk, all of the features you would have in a normal car without sacrifices. It looks like a Fit, it drives like a Fit (well, better - more on that later), and aside from the silver "EV" lettering on the side & lack of a tailpipe (and noise of any kind), you'd be hard-pressed to tell a difference from the gas-burning version.
One of the downsides is that at the end of the lease, Honda will destroy the car in the name of science (it gets disassembled for review). So you can't buy it off-lease (heck, you can't buy it at all - it's only available as a 3-year lease) and it gets scrapped for testing once you're done with. And if you move, you have to give the car back (no penalty for early return due to moving out of state), because you can only lease it in the supported states. Also, you have to sign a disclosure that Honda gets to see all of the data from the car - there's a data antenna that transmits the car's statistics to Honda wirelessly every few minutes. CoughPRISMcough.
So with all that aside - the second that struck me is just how amazingly QUIET this car is. There's no electric whine like I was expecting. You do hear the motor at times, but it's a more comforting Stat Trek-esqe sound than an annoying high-pitched whistle. I actually really like the sound of it, but again, you can only hear it at certain times, especially with the windows rolled down. There's a bit of tire noise but mostly it's just semi-insulated wind noise. Even with the windows rolled down, it's not noisy at all. You really do feel like you're driving a vehicle from the future, it's just SO nice! Plus being your own gas station is just awesome:
http://i.imgur.com/xPvsxQh.jpg
One of the neat things is stopping - if you've ever been to a concert where the choir stopped sharply on the last note and it left that ringing echo of silence that almost makes your ears pop, that's exactly what happens when you do a full stop in the Fit EV - it goes from quiet to absolutely dead silent. On our trip back, it was nighttime and when we stopped at a light, we literally heard crickets. It was awesome! It's very disconcerting starting it up, and coming to a full stop, because you feel like you've stalled the engine - that dreaded silence that comes from popping the clutch or losing power in a gasoline-powered car that makes your heart stop, haha.
So going along with the overall quiet ride is the smoothness. It's amazingly smooth - smoother even than the newer-generation CVT transmissions I've driven in. I was not expecting it to be that smooth at all! But even with cruise control on, when you tap the + and - buttons to adjust the speed, there's no jerk - just silky smoothness. Also there are 3 driving modes - ECON, Normal, and Sport. You usually drive around in Normal unless you need to save juice in ECON mode. Sport mode does make it zippier, particularly on the highway, but I was just fine around the city in Normal mode.
For the first leg of our trip, we went to another town, which was mostly downhill. The Fit EV has regenerative braking which operates in 2 modes - regular "Drive" and "B". B-mode is basically like a low gear, which acts like engine braking. So not only is it better on hills because it's basically like down-shifting, but you also get more juice back into the battery from it. It's actually really nice to drive in, although it takes some getting used to, because it brakes for you as you drive. So push down to accelerate, lift off the accelerator pedal to slow down to a stop. If you plan out your stop signs & stop lights, it can be extremely beneficial to the battery. We gained a couple miles of range (the range meter is right on the dashboard) using this technique.
Both the performance and the range are definitely better in the city. I think we only used about 5 miles of range driving through the backgrounds thanks to the regenerative braking giving us back power, even after getting lost in suburbia for awhile :biggrin: The power band is the strongest in the 0 to 30 range. It has plenty of pep from 0 to 50 too, but as you get past 50 it starts wimping out. It just barely crosses the line at what I'd call "acceptable" for highway performance - just slightly better than a Prius. Yes, you can pass people, but not as quickly as I like. Also, I lost 2 miles of range passing 2 cars at 65 MPH to 75 MPH. It's supposed to be around 1:1 on the highway, but I think it's more like 1.5 once you get past 60 MPH or so.
It is absolutely a conversation starter. People were coming out to look at it wherever we stopped. Lots of smiles, lots of staring. It doesn't look any different than a regular Fit other than the silver EV sticker on the side (which is small), but it is an eye-catching car in the extremely nice blue. It was fun geeking out and explaining how things worked in it!
http://i.imgur.com/IEq0KTx.jpg
I took the wheel for the trip home - partly city and partly highway. You can definitely peel out in it. Also, it will throw you back in your seat when you gun it (not as hard as say a Jetta TDI, but it does have oomph!). The initial pedal press is a bit hard, but after that it's just power, power, power. SMOOTH power! Oh my gosh, this is the nicest car I've ever driven. I can't even tell you how awesome it is to drive. For starters, no noise. Then there's the steering - the gas Fit is nice & tight, but this is insane - tighter & smoother than a Prius (if you've ever driven one), just like playing a video game. It does EXACTLY what you want it to do. It drives like it's on rails - like a monorail, in fact. You can take your hands off at 65 MPH on the highway and it doesn't budge.
Part of that is because there's a 640-pound battery sitting underneath you. So it's like having a giant anti-sway bar. I took an exit ramp from one highway to another at 50 and gunned it up to 65 and it just stayed absolutely planted. Felt really, really good to drive, extremely connected to the road. You can steer with your pinky (I can say that because I did!) at any speed without a hitch. The acceleration is the same way - it's like the best CVT you'll ever drive. It just does exactly what you tell it to. Like I said, city driving is the most fun because it's crazy zippy up to about 30 MPH. Up to 50 it has guts, but beyond that it kind of goes into boring territory.
The tech is nice. Touchscreen is okay, I'm glad it had buttons on the radio area. The GPS looked stupidly outdated (1995-era map graphics lol), so we just used my iPhone for navigation. The backup camera is great, although the car's visibility is so good you don't really need it at all. The HVAC is really cool - there's a round gauge with the temperature, and a red up button for heat and blue down button for cool. Very easy! The leather-wrapped steering wheel felt very nice. I didn't try out a Bluetooth call, but I bet it would have been great because of how ridiculously quiet it was inside. I can't stress enough how much it feels like you're driving a car from the future - like going to the Epcot Center as a kid where you see all of the future tech and think, that's amazing! I want that someday! Well, today was someday - my first ride & drive in an all-electric car! 🙂 Also there is a neat dongle in addition to the standard key/keyfob - it's a little remote that lets you check on the battery charge percentage and also pre-cool the car with the fan:
http://i.imgur.com/VXNG5hC.jpg
There is also an iPhone app, although it has terrible reviews that say it doesn't work: (didn't try it)
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hondalink-ev/id542703745?mt=8
My buddy rotates it through his family members throughout the week (it's a work commuter during the week and then a fun vehicle during the weekend) and so far they like it so much that they are considering leasing a second one. They do have a gas backup car, so it's not an issue if they run out of juice and still need a ride somewhere. You can pretty much do a 40-mile roundtrip with it (they took it 80 miles on the highway today for the first trip and still had 8 miles left), although in winter the battery life drops to 30 to 40 miles. However, you can plug into any 3-prong outlet (15-hour time to full charge) and they already have public fast-chargers (240V for a 3-hour full charge) at places like Panera Bread.
So on the way home, I hopped on the highway and played around with it there. It's fabulous on the highway, really my only complaint was that you can't really goose it at 50+ MPH. Yes, it can pass, sort of like a small 4-cylinder engine with the A/C on high on a hot day, if you've ever experienced that - not exactly sluggishly, but not as quick as you'd like. But not scary like the Prius I drove, at least. It was so smooth & quiet that I felt like I was on one of those rides at Disney World on rails. So...we had a 10-mile trip home via the highway and 19 miles left on the "tank". I burned through 2 of those miles passing cars on the highway. Eek. After playing around some more, and with the lights on for nighttime driving, our range continued to drop. We got off the highway and decided to take the backroads home.
2 miles from home, the battery dropped to 1 mile of range. Boy, talk about range anxiety! Holy cow! Haha. Fortunately there were a lot of hills, so we'd go up the hills, then use the regenerative braking to get back up to 2 miles of range. It does kick off warnings on the dashboard about being ultra-low and kills the radio on you. We were wondering what would happen after that last mile ran out, but fortunately we made it to the driveway - WHEW! Since it was already 11pm at night, we decided we didn't want to push it home in the dark, so we didn't drive around anymore to kill the remaining mile. Thank goodness for B-mode and regenerative braking, haha!
http://i.imgur.com/sPLksn6.jpg
That was definitely an experience - I was okay at 2 miles because we could make it home easily, but when it hit 1 mile at 2 miles out, my heart definitely started to race. We had no idea what would actually happen when it lost power, so it was a pretty tense ride home! Plus my iPhone was at 4% battery too and we didn't have my car charger in the Fit EV, so we would have been out of juice in both the car and the phone haha. I can really see the value in a gas-assisted vehicle like the Chevy Volt, where if you run out of battery juice, you can roll on gasoline for backup and FILL UP if you need to! In this car, that's it, no hope - you need a tow or a plug. I was in love with the car until that last mile hit me - I decided even if my workplaces put chargers in, it'd still be too tight for me - if I had a 265-mile-range Tesla S, sure, no problem, but an 82-mile Fit EV...yikes! For my buddy & his family, it works out great because they're only 5 to 10 miles from most of the places they go, so their round trip is typically less than 20 miles per outing, which is only a quarter of the advertised EPA-rated range. So even in winter, they'll still have a minimum of 10 miles of extra range if they drop to 30 miles fully-charged for a large amount of their trips, and they still have their ICE vehicles for backup.
My conclusion is that this is a great second car for careful people. This is not a car for someone who does not pay attention, because you WILL be left stranded on the side of the road with no miles left to drive if you don't plan out your trips. This is not a good primary car because you can't just "go anywhere" in it - to the emergency room if you need to, on a long trip if you want to - it would only be a good primary car for very, very few people, like if you live in a dense city and don't travel very far during the day. With my spirited driving, I would not want this car due to the limited range - I'd burn it up too quickly. My daily round trip is between 40 and 50 miles, plus sometimes site-to-site visits, so even with chargers at work, I'd be too nervous about cutting through the range too quickly, like if there's road delays and I'm sitting idling with the A/C on for too long (not sure how much that affects battery life, but I'm sure it's a pretty significant drain).
So, if you meet the criteria - it's an exceptional machine. Oh boy, it just blew my little mind. My face literally hurts because I've been smiling so much, haha. It was a wonderful experience to take a drive in and I would really love to have one at some point when the range gets longer. If it had a 100-mile range and there were chargers everywhere, I would probably bite the bullet & do it. As it stands now, the only option that would work for me is a Tesla with a 200+ mile range, but at $55k to $108k even after the $7500 CT tax credit, well - that buys a lot of gasoline 😀 My buddy calculated out that he's pretty much breaking even with the lease, included maintenance, reduced insurance (Honda covers collision), and electricity charging cost, so it's not like it's a huge cost savings to go from a paid-off gas car to a leased electric car, but it might work out financially to your benefit depending on your situation.
TL;DR -
1. Fantastically quiet
2. Best car I have EVER driven - ultra-smooth acceleration, drives like it's on rails, turns with a pinky finger
3. It MUST fit your lifestyle and you MUST be a careful person for it to work (range limitations)
http://i.imgur.com/tB38JYP.jpg
