Review of the new Honda Jazz Hybrid

Honda's five-door Fiesta-sized Jazz blows the technological trumpet loud and proud with this clever version that introduces hybrid petrol/electric propulsion to ensure tax and congestion busting low-emissions and miserly fuel consumption. All in a car that is highly manoeuvrable, handsomely put together, and which carries a badge with an enviable reputation for reliability.

This really is a significant move for Honda in a car so compact and one that rival manufacturers will no doubt be watching with keen interest. The Jazz Hybrid, with its petrol engine and its electric motor, is the first small Fiesta-sized supermini in the world to be fitted with this technology. Yet it does so without compromise. It was only a decade or so that early prototypes of small cars with hybrid technology meant a vehicle filled to bursting with batteries, controllers and motors and precious little room for anything or anyone. Today, this Jazz makes no concessions to the technology - and certainly there are no compromises for the motorist to make. This is simply a very good supermini, which happens to have two forms of propulsion.

The Jazz hybrid uses the same highly efficient and compact package that is Honda's proven 1.3-litre i-VTEC engine mated to the electric motor that delivers electric powered, emissions-free and almost totally quiet inner city and low speed motoring. Not only does the environment benefit but so too does the motorist as the Hybrid double-act results in CO2 emissions of just 104g/km and fuel figures of 64mpg on the combined cycle. To put that in perspective, its emissions are 21g/km lower than the current lowest-emitting 1.2 litre petrol Jazz. The benefit is a road tax bill of precisely zero for the first year of ownership and then just £20 a year. If you live in London, the car is exempt from Congestion Charging.

Better still, the Hybrid retains the many positive virtues of the non-hybrid Jazz, which include the flexible "Magic Rear Seats" which can be folded very low and flat and which can also have the cushion flipped up against the backrest. The result is a tall loadbay and up to 831 litres of boot space.

"A neat solution to urban motoring that's very much of our times.."

Unlike cars that are all battery and which take hours to recharge, the Jazz Hybrid is as simple to own, run and drive as a regular petrol or diesel vehicle and gets the best of all worlds. In town at slow speeds, the car is powered by the 14bhp electric motor and as speed picks up, propulsion transfers to the 1.3 litre i-VTEC unit mated to the CVT gearbox which has seven ratios tucked away inside it. This combination means that this Honda has the lowest emissions of any automatic transmission car in the supermini sector.

The nickel hydride power pack and the control unit are stashed away having been built into the area under the floor of the boot so that there is no loss of boot space. This is a compromise some hybrid vehicles are forced to make and poor packaging can often mean a lack of storage. But the Jazz Hybrid retains its 300 litres of boot space which grows to 831 litres once the seats have been folded, just as in the non-hybrid version.

At the wheel, the clever 'Eco Assist' gives you a constant update on how economically you are driving and provides real-time information on how fuel consumption is being affected by how harshly you brake or how fiercely you accelerate. This, after all, is what Honda's hybrids - the larger Insight and now this Jazz - are all about: saving fuel and cutting emissions. To keep Eco Assist happy will mean adopting a driving style that will almost certainly need to be a bit more gentle on the throttle and the brakes, and less "stop/go" generally than most of us are used to, but then that can hardly be a bad thing.

Honda have been careful, while introducing hybrid technology to the Jazz, not to change other areas of the car too drastically for fear of scaring away traditional customers. So while the Hybrid is very different under the skin, its looks are familiar and comfortably recognisable. Minor changes are limited to revised headlights that now get a blue surround, some added chrome as a flourish for the tailgate, slight modifications to the bumpers, as well as clear rear lights and a smarter front grille. Oh, and if you have the stomach for it, you could always opt for the Lime Green Metallic special Hybrid paint job offered alongside the more sober existing Jazz range of colours. The cabin also gets a gentle makeover, again nothing that will scare the horses, and the blue of the headlight surrounds is picked up with blue lighting of the dials and instruments, while the dash features a darker single colour.

You're looking at a premium of course on ordinary Jazz models, but if you were going for a plusher version anyway - up at the higher end of this model's £11,000-£16,000 price bracket in standard form - then the extra to buy yourself intro a Jazz Hybrid shouldn't be too onerous. Buyers will get certainly get a plusher feel - at least if they opt for the leather option that the Hybrid version introduces to the range. Otherwise, standard equipment includes a CD stereo with MP3 compatibility and speed-dependant volume control and all the usual niceties. Options for the discerning Jazz Hybrid driver include a range of alloy wheels and a solid state drive navigation system, along with hands-free Bluetooth compatibility and the latest in entertainment technology.

Though this Jazz isn't inexpensive for a supermini, the upfront bonus of driving a car that produces 104g/km of emissions is that road tax is free for the first year and only £20 a year after that, a fraction of the amount paid by owners of non-hybrid cars. Fuel consumption that averages around 64mpg is not to be sniffed at either. Plus you don't pay the congestion charge if you go into central London. And, thanks to the fact that the Honda marque consistently rates as among the most dependable with their cars inevitably towards the top of any reliability rankings, high residuals mean you'll get much of your up-front purchase price back when the time comes to sell.

For those considering the Jazz Hybrid but cautious about adopting hybrid technology, it's worth noting that this particular petrol/electric set-up has been well proven in the Honda Insight and CR-Z hybrids. The Japanese brand first started working on this technology some 20 years ago. Their hybrids have been on sale for a decade and more than 500,000 have been sold around the world. So while this technology is new to the supermini sector, it's truly tried and tested.

Overall, it's best to think of this model not so much as a hybrid, but as a regular car that happens to offer ingenious packaging and versatility, plus renowned engineering and build, but which also happens to have a battery and a small electric motor buried away somewhere on board as well. A neat solution to urban motoring that's very much of our times.

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