Honda ZR-V SUV (2023 - ) review

The only ‘engine’ you’ll ever be able to pick with a ZR-V is a hybrid setup branded e:HEV of the type you don’t have to plug in . It’s actually a very complicated thing, doing without a normal gearbox and instead using a couple of electric motors and a 2.0-litre petrol engine. It’s the sort of thing that’s best explained with a graph, but fundamentally, it’s always trying to use the battery to power the car rather than fuel. Clearly, it does use fuel but we’ve found the officially claimed 46.6mpg an achievable figure, and it’s a good one for what is a fairly heavy and spacious family car. It does make the ZR-V look quite pricey up front, though, with a starting price of a shade below £40,000. By contrast, the list prices of the Nissan Qashqai and the Kia Sportage both start well below £30,000.

At the time of writing the ZR-V is brand new, so we don’t have any owner reports to verify its reliability. There’s lots to point towards this being a very reliable ownership proposition, though. Mainly, Honda itself has a terrific reputation for the dependability of its cars, so much so that it was shortlisted in the Most Reliable Brand category of the Auto Trader Awards in 2023, voted for by owners. In addition, the ZR-V is based on the latest Honda Civic, sharing a chassis, electrics, interior parts and the hybrid system itself. The Civic, which arrived in 2021, is proving very reliable. Honda backs up the ZR-V with a three-year, 90,000-mile warranty, which isn’t class-leading in length – Kia’s seven-year warranty still leads the way there – but the high mileage allowance shows how much faith Honda has in the ZR-V.

The ZR-V hasn’t been crash tested by Euro NCAP yet, but as per its reliability, things bode well on the safety front. For a start, the Civic on which it’s based received a full five-star award in 2022, and all the safety technology in that car is found in the ZR-V. Honda calls it ‘Sensing’ tech, and it comprises a load of cameras and sensors whose aim is to prevent you driving into things. It’s linked to automatic braking with pre-collision warnings, lane departure (and road departure) mitigation – nudging the steering wheel to stay in lane, basically – and driver attention warnings. Aside from that it has 10 airbags, including one between the front passengers. All this stuff is standard fit, too, so there’s no need to option an additional ‘safety pack’ or similar to get the safest ZR-V.

One of the ZR-V’s best qualities is how well it blends basic comfort with good stability; it’s not uncommon for an SUV to feel either too soft, or have suspension that’s over-firm in an attempt to make the car ‘sporty’. The ZR-V falls into neither trap. It’s great at generally keeping lumps and bumps away from the cabin, while keeping the body fairly stable at all speeds, even during cornering. But aside from the ride quality, the ZR-V gets all the other basics of a comfortable car pretty much spot on. All this means it’s one of the more entertaining crossover SUVs on sale in terms of how it drives, but beyond that the driving position itself is judged well, placing the driver a little lower than the average SUV, but still highly adjustable. Plus, the windscreen pillars are relatively thin and the rear screen is quite large, meaning all-around visibility is excellent for stress-free parking and manoeuvring. General refinement is excellent too, especially at lower speeds when the electric motors are doing the driving, rather than the petrol engine. In fact, the only real refinement issue the ZR-V has is that the 2.0-litre petrol engine isn’t the most pleasant-sounding thing, albeit you’ll only really notice that when you’re working it hard. There’s plenty of rear leg space too, albeit rear headroom is on the tighter side.

The HR-V is a feature-rich car, even at the base of the range. Given its starting price, that’s probably the least you’d expect, though. Still, aside from the excellent suite of safety features, all ZR-Vs come with heated seats (front and, unusually, back), 18-inch alloy wheels, keyless entry and start, parking cameras and sensors, and dual-zone climate control. That specification is called Elegance and it feels like a lot of car. Mid-level Sport trim adds part-leather upholstery, a powered tailgate, wireless phone charging, black coating for the wheels and a ‘sporty’ body kit. We expect that’s where most buyers will end up, although a top spec Advance car feels positively luxurious. It gets a panoramic glass roof, eight-way adjustable power seats, a head-up display and one of the best Bose stereos you’ll hear in a mid-level crossover SUV. All cars come with the same 10-inch digital instrument panel and 9.0-inch infotainment touch-screen – the latter a little basic to look at but intuitive enough to use.

The sole hybrid drivetrain available with the ZR-V has clearly been developed to be all things to all people. It’s relatively quick with 0-62mph in 7.8 seconds, efficient and largely very refined other than the excess engine noise at high load mentioned above. While the petrol engine is on the larger side (and you wonder if a smaller turbocharged one might help efficiency further) the e:HEV hybrid system should give careful drivers a 50mpg-plus return, and it does make the car pretty efficient during lower-speed town driving. The fact that the system is the only mainstream ‘self-charging’ hybrid that includes the feeling of a natural ‘gear change’ in its complicated petrol-electric setup is a big selling point, too. It feels far less whiney than similar configurations used by other manufacturers, Toyota’s widely used hybrid system among them. For this and other reasons it’s genuinely one of the best.