The new Honda Jazz has made it first appearance at the Tokyo Motor Show. It will be the first compact car to feature Honda’s new e:HEV two-motor hybrid electric powertrain.
The new fourth-generation Honda Fit, known as the Jazz in some markets, including India, was developed with the intention of becoming the globally-accepted standard compact car without compromising on space and usability. As a new concept in automobile development, the development team pursued an “emotional value” which cannot be expressed numerically, and embodies four dimensions of comfort that enable the new Jazz to be better suited to the daily lives of varied customers. That said, the new Honda Jazz will be offered in five different types so that customers can select the model that is right for them depending on their lifestyle and needs. These are as follows:
Basic
The Basic new Honda Jazz offers both high-quality design and occupant comfort. This type will feature a simple and endearing design including a front face design with a gentle look and seamless and flowing exterior form.
Home
This type of the new Honda Jazz strives to realize a relaxing and carefully-designed space with high visual and tactile quality by coordinating colours and materials, including natural-looking fabric seats made with high-quality materials, a genuine leather-wrapped steering wheel and “Prime Smooth: soft padding.
Ness
This new Honda Jazz type features exciting colour coordination and adopts water-repellent materials for the seat surfaces and soft padding on the instrument panel. It is a sporty and fashionable type which will enable customers to enjoy driving just like they enjoy fitness and sports.
Crosstar
This type for the new Honda Jazz features an exterior design developed exclusively for this particular type as well as 16-inch aluminium alloy wheels. The interior gets water-repellent materials, are used for seat surfaces, and soft padding on the instrument panel. This type projects an enhanced image of a compact and yet tough vehicle.
Luxe
Striving to create a space where people can spend elegant and comfortable time, standard genuine leather seats were designed as an exclusive feature for this new Honda Jazz type while pursuing excellence in visual and tactile quality. For the exterior, platinum-style chrome plating and 16-inch aluminium alloy wheels were adopted to increase the high quality feel.
In the new Honda Jazz, the instrument panel features a flat-topped design which emphasizes horizontal and straight lines, and windshield wipers are positioned to be barely visible from inside the cabin, which also enhances a comfortable view while driving. The front seats will be the first of Honda’s new-generation body stabilizing seat that was developed while envisioning application for its high-class sedan models. The planar support structure of the seat is designed to stabilize the body and make long drives less tiring, while enabling the driver to enjoy a soft seating feel. The rear seats of the new Honda Jazz continue to feature seat arrangements as versatile as that of the previous-generation model and realize seat comfort equivalent to high-class sedan models by adopting a larger and thicker seat-pad.
The new Honda Jazz will only be offered with the all-new hybrid powertrain; being the first Honda compact car equipped with the two-motor hybrid system. Honda have developed this to realize both excellent environmental performance and a comfortable driving experience at the same time. It will be introduced to the market as a part of Honda’s new range of “e:HEV” models. The new set-up will drive smoothly with an electric motor used for virtually all situations of everyday driving and realize outstanding environmental performance with powerful acceleration. This is augmented by the good handling characteristics and comfortable driving feel.
Further additions include a front wide-view camera, which covers a wide area in front of the vehicle. This is newly added to the Honda SENSING advanced safety and driver-assistive system installed in the new Honda Jazz. By combining the front wide-view camera and eight sonar sensors mounted in the front and rear, it allows for enhanced Honda SENSING functions as well as a new short-distance collision mitigation braking system. Whether this feature makes it to India remains to be seen.
