The Engineer Car Review: Honda CR-V

It’s been said that 2019 will go down as the year of the hybrid. While the concept of hybridisation has been around for more than two decades, it’s only relatively recently that this technology has truly begun to make an impact on the mainstream car market. And you won’t find a much more mainstream model than the Honda CR-V. Underneath the skin of this new Hybrid version, however, there’s an innovative drivetrain that’s packed with interesting technology.

Conceptually, you could almost say that the CR-V Hybrid’s powertrain is closer to that of a diesel electric locomotive than that found in a traditional passenger car. For much of the time it runs as a series hybrid, with the 2-litre Atkinson cycle petrol driving a generator, which in turn supplies power to a propulsion motor connected to the front wheels. Any excess power is used to top up a compact lithium ion battery pack located underneath the boot. At high loads, an automatic clutch kicks in to connect the engine to the front wheels via a single-speed transmission. The rest of the time, however, there is no physical connection between the engine and the wheels.