driving Honda CRZ

Car: Honda CR-Z Alpha auto-manual (pedal shift)
Price (in Japan): 2.5 million yen (roughly USD 29k)


from my experience, here are two ways to look at it:

1) from a sports car point of view
It really is disappointing. It feels bulky, despite its best effort to keep the weight down. The steering input and feedback is a major let down. I don't know in that aspect it's better than Honda Fit - a family compact.

2) from a hybrid car point of view
This is way more fun than your run-of-mill Prius or Honda's own Insight. The preset modes are actually useful too. Sport/Normal/Econ. I was on Sport mode 99% of my test drive. The Econ mode is really snail-like, but it gets the job done - saving gas.

The good:
dash, dials, general interior feel very modern, easy to see, although there are way too many buttons to fiddle with
the pedal shift feels pretty textile, can't say I like it but general public probably do

The bad:
no punch behind the push, if the battery is fully charged, in Sport mode, and pedal to the metal, it gets up to speed, but no torque, at all

The ugly:
the sheer size it feels... it feels empty, especially with the so-called auto-manual pedal shift. VERY LITTLE FEEDBACK.

Verdict:
Until I can drive it a little harder for real, for now it lacks what makes a car sporty - information from the road conveyed back to the driver. It fails as a sporty car. It fails as an all-out hybrid in mileage. It's pitched toward the casual driver, somewhat environmentally minded, interested in sporty looking car, with no children (teeny tiny backseats).