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has anyone gone to any hybrid workshop that does battery maintenance besides HEVshop? What's the cost for cleaning hybrid fan or recharge the battery pack? My PI warranty almost ending and they have never checked the hybrid battery before that's why was hoping to get it checked outside. Thank you!

I recently had a go (sometime early this year) with the facelifted Honda Insight courtesy of Honda Malaysia via a journalist friend of mine who was testing it for a few days. It is basically the same car with some cosmetic changes to the front and rear bumpers, front grille, a CVT gearbox with some minute improvements and some tweaks to the hybrid drivetrain. The improvements made are nothing to shout about as it is still basically the same car, powered by the same 88ps, 121Nm 1.3-litre engine coupled to a tiny 14ps, 78Nm electric motor that assists the car when the going gets tough. What both engines give you isn

Yes. Honda has officially launched the CRZ at the 2010 Detroit Auto Show. The specs are as per my earlier posting on the car but one surprising item is the fuel economy of this hybrid vehicle. 31mpg city/38mpg highway are pretty disappointing figures. So if you think you're helping the environment by running one of these babies you're not. A small city car like a Daihatsu Mira or the Perodua Viva would burn less fossil fuel than the admittedly more stylish CRZ. I don't think Honda is trying hard enough. I still have to say that the bad mileage is due to those extra heavy batteries. If you tried lifting the battery of your current petrol powered car you'd see my point. While the current generation of electric hybrid car batteries are smaller, lighter and more efficient than the average battery of a car, you still need dozens of them packed together and that increases the weight in a car. Hence the lame performance figures and even lamer fuel consumption figures you see published. So fun, sporty, low slung coupe the CRZ is, in certain ways, but not in performance and economy. It looks closer in performance to the Honda Insight, not a Honda CRX. Where's that 2.0 liter VTEC engine, Honda? The interior looks pretty Honda to me. The Civic as well as the Hybrid design philosophy is maintained. An interior that would look fresh even after you've owned it for a few years by the looks of it. As for exterior looks, I find it decent looking at most angles but not in its side profile where the CRZ looks unbalanced. This made me look twice at the picture to check whether I was looking at it correctly. Maybe its the angle in the official photos, but I truly think that the front overhang is ridiculously long for the short wheelbase and the rear looks a little chubby and stumpy. But that chin! It's as if this car was made to plow snow during heavy winters in Alaska. David Coulthard must have been an inspiration for the designers. I have to restate that these new pedestrian safety features are making cars look like they have too long a chin. For example, look at the Peugeot 407. If they reined in the chin a little or if the car had a slightly longer rear, it would balance the looks better. At least Peugeot is in the midst of changing their design philosophy. I think the pedestrians should look where they're crossing so that designers can design cars that can look prettier and balanced looking again. Back to the topic at hand, I have to view the car in the flesh before I cast my final judgment on the looks.

Here's the official brochure of the new Honda CR-Z, hailed as the successor to the CRX of the late 1980s. The brochure confirms that the CR-Z's hybrid drivetrain will comprise of a 1.5-litre four-cylinder petrol unit and an electric motor, with power being transferred to the front wheels via a six-speed manual gearbox. The petrol engine delivers an output of 113bhp at 6,000rpm and a peak torque of 145Nm at 4,800 rpm. The electric motor, on the other hand, delivers 13.4bhp at 1,500rpm and 78Nm at 1,000rpm. As a result, the CR-Z performs the century sprint in a rather relaxed timing of 9.7 seconds. The published fuel consumption is 25.0km/L. Those who are expecting the CR-Z to be a CRX replacement would be disappointed with the performance of the car. Nonetheless, this is the most stylish hybrid car to date.