Honda HR-V
Mileage 3150 List price £33,835 Target Price £33,096 Price as tested £34,660
Test economy 50.6mpg
MY HONDA HR-V has me thinking about the Electric Mountain – no, not a forbidding, mystical edifice in a Tolkien fantasy landscape, but a hydro-electric power station in Snowdonia. And that’s all because of the way the car and mountain both deliver their power.
The Electric Mountain is home to Dinorwig Power Station, which lies deep below the summit of Elidir. Most of the time, it lies there silently, in a state of readiness. Meanwhile, 71 metres above, the surface of the lake Llyn Peris is placid. However, the very moment the half-time whistle blows in a televised Welsh football match and the nation collectively puts the kettle on, Dinorwig roars into action to satisfy the spike in demand for electricity.
When cruising at 69mph, the HR-V’S in-built power station is calm, too. It combines a 1.5-litre petrol engine with a battery and a pair of electric motors, and at that speed, on a straight, level section of road, a little ‘EV’ symbol on the dashboard tells me that we’re running on battery power alone. Things remain calm even when the battery is running low; in this situation, the petrol engine wakes up and spins at relatively low revs, acting as a generator to keep the electricity flowing and allowing that 69mph to be maintained.
However, it doesn’t take much movement from my right foot before the HR-V unleashes the full Dinorwig. When the latter’s power is called upon, thousands of litres of water from Llyn Peris are released, crashing down through the turbines and generating 1800MW of power in seconds. Now, if, when driving the HR-V, I should need a burst of acceleration, the resultant cacophony suggests that a similar thing is happening; the petrol engine roars away as if it’s trying to power the nation’s kettles.
Still, if this is the price I have to pay for economy, so be it. Right now, a pretty impressive 50.6mpg is the norm for my routine 240-mile round trip to work and back. And with petrol prices soaring, every mile per penny helps.
‘The engine roars away as if it’s trying to power the nation’s kettles’