Do Hybrids Have Legs? looks at Honda’s new Accord Hybrid:
No backdoor effort to give Honda more “eco-cover,” the Accord Hybrid is, in fact, Honda’s fastest, most powerful production car, combining its superb 3-liter, 240 horsepower V-6 with a12-kilowatt electric motor. Unlike the Prius, in which the gasoline engine and the electric motor more or less share tasks, the Accord employs the electric motor mainly to enhance the gas engine’s performance. Honda calls this IMA or “integrated motor assist,” boosting the car up to 255 horsepower.Although the hybrid’s $30,000 base price is $3,000 more than the standard Accord V-6, the car is loaded with goodies like leather seats and XM satellite radio mated to a 120-watt sound system.
Honda claims 37 miles per gallon on the highway and 30 mpg in city driving — whopping 38 and 23 percent improvements over the regular Accord V-6. The economy is delivered not just from the electric motor but from the use of “variable cylinder management,” Honda’s name for a system that shuts down three of the Accord’s cylinders at cruising speeds