After being on the market for over eight years, Honda has finally gotten around to giving the small Fit-based HR-V a badly needed makeover. More grown-up, handsome styling and new tech should get more buyers into Honda’s smallest crossover, with pricing starting at $24,895 for the base front-wheel drive, LX trim.
Buyers will be able to choose between LX, Sport, and top-line EX-L trims. The LX trim comes well-equipped with standard features like seven-inch digital instrumentation for the driver, and a seven-inch color touchscreen for the infotainment system with standard Apple Carplay/Android Auto. Even hill descent control is standard, which is strange, as it’s sort of pointless without all-wheel drive. That’s a $1,500 option on every trim by the way.
Moving up to the Sport trim will set you back and extra couple grand at $26,895 for the FWD version. That gets you the usual sporty-look trim pieces we’ve come to expect from crossovers: Black wheels, chrome exhaust finishers, and a rear bumper that’s painted in a gunmetal metallic paint.
Moving up to the top-of-the-line EX-L trim gets you what’s described as “upscale” features. The EX-L’s interior is finished with a larger nine-inch color touchscreen. On the exterior: gloss black on the front grille and other trim pieces, along with 17-inch gray-painted alloy wheels.
The 2023 HR-V is larger too. Since Honda said goodbye to the Fit, the HR-V shares a platform with the 11th gen Civic. That means a bigger wheelbase for the HR-V and a bigger track. It even shares the Civic’s 2.0-liter 158 horsepower I4. That’s 17 more horsepower over the last-gen HR-V. Unfortunately, that engine still gets paired to a CVT.
A bigger platform also means worse fuel economy. Honda says expect fuel mileage of 26/32/28 combined with front-wheel drive and 25/30/27 with AWD. Those numbers are slightly worse than the outgoing HR-V which got up to 34 mpg combined. And while Honda sells a hybrid version of the HR-V in other markets, we have yet to see one in talks for the U.S.
The 2022 Honda HR-V is due to start arriving at dealers this month.