Published:
27 March 2012The Honda CR-Z’s cabin is as intriguing as the exterior, especially once you’ve turned on the ignition, which electrifies a colourful 3D instrument pack.
As with the Insight, the colour of this display blends from blue to green if you drive more economically, while in Sport the illuminations turn red.
Minor instrumentation includes an ‘eco-drive bar’, indicating whether you’re drawing current from the battery or regenerating it, an econometer, a fuel gauge and an energy path display, as well as the usual journey statistics. You can also recall the average fuel consumption over your last three trips.
Add in a gearchange shift light and the ‘leaves’, which reward economical driving, and there’s plenty to divert beyond the normal driving. Clusters of minor switches flank the steering column to complete a busy confection of controls and readouts that are nevertheless reasonably easy to use.
You sit lower than you do aboard an Insight, but there is still decent room for two in every direction. The same can’t be said of the rear seats, which are barely worthy of the term. This confined space is best used for luggage – even if you can squeeze someone into the back, the sloping roofline means they’ll have to sit with their heads skewed to one side.
The boot is fairly big, at 225 litres with the rear seats up, but much space is lost to a foam tool tray (there’s no spare wheel) beneath the floor.
