Here's WHY the 2019 Honda CR-V Hybrid is a BRILLIANT SUV!

I'm not really the S U V type of person .

I prefer loud , loud and fast cars all day long .

But from now on , whenever someone asks me for a recommendation for a family S U V , this is going to be my first choice for them .

And here's why , what's up everyone , Paul here .

Welcome to cartoons and welcome aboard the 2019 Honda Crv hybrid .

Today we're going to discover its history , take a quick walk around the car , talk about its innovative hybrid system and finally , we're going to take it out on the road to see how it drives .

So the Honda Crv , it's a compact crossover SUV built by Honda and since 1995 they sold more than nine million of these worldwide making this car the best selling SUV on the planet .

This is the fifth generation of the car and given the times we living right now , Hana decided to only sell this car with a 1.5 petrol engine with multiple power outputs or as a hybrid .

There are four trim levels available for the car in Sweden .

You can buy it as a four wheel drive or as a front wheel drive variant and there's also a seven seater option available .

The car I'm driving today is the hybrid version in the elegant stream , which is basically Honda's replacement for the diesel and it features some quite unique technologies that we're gonna talk about later on .

So let's begin at the front .

The car features led headlights , it's finished in this quite cool platinum white pearl paint job and the front grill features active aerodynamics , which means there are a bunch of flaps inside this grill that stay closed to make the car more aerodynamic and they open up when the engine needs more cooling .

And before we move to the side , let's discover this quite unique hybrid power train on the new CRV , the CRV S hybrid power train consists of a two liter petrol engine and two electric motors , one that's used for propulsion and the other acting like an electric generator motor .

The car has three power modes , electric hybrid and engine drive .

And I guess you've already figured out what's what by the names , electric drive is the one where the car uses just the energy from the small one kilowatt battery .

It has to drive the wheels while hybrid drive is when the engine provides energy to the generator that powers the electric motor that makes the wheels move .

And finally we have engine drive that kicks in when you are doing high speed driving and it's the mode in which the engine drives the wheels directly through a clutch that provides a direct connection to the wheels via a fixed one ratio gearbox .

Yes , you heard that right .

This car doesn't have a traditional gearbox per se .

And that's because the main purpose of the engine in the CRV hybrid is to generate electricity and not to power the wheels directly .

Hence why it only does that if you floor the throttle or drive the car at high speeds , all these modes are managed by the intelligent multi mode driving system .

I MD that seamlessly alternates between the three power modes that we talked about earlier .

The car comes as standard with 18 inch alloys which I think fit the car very well .

And you also have the hybrid band jig on the front fenders over here , the doors on the CRV are quite cool as well and very practical .

The back doors , for example , open at a 90 degrees making it very easy to get in and out of the car .

And I love the fact that they also cover the entire side of the car , which means that the inside will never get dirty .

So your clothes are safe moving on to the back .

Unfortunately , the tailgate is not electrically operated .

So you have to manually open and close it .

And once inside , there's more bad news , the hybrid CRV doesn't have a spare wheel because in its place , Honda has fitted the batteries more .

So you can't order the hybrid as a seven seater because of the same reason .

But otherwise the boot is quite big as you can see .

And if you need more luggage space , you can easily fold the back seats from here .

But enough of the exterior , let's check the inside of the car .

As soon as you jump inside this car , you realize how spacious this interior is and how practical it is as well .

We've got plenty of storage spaces , build quality is pretty good .

There's plenty of soft touch materials all around the car .

And in this stream that we're in right now , you get sat nav as standard along with Android Auto and Apple car play , you also get adaptive cruise control lane , assist , heated seats and dual zone climate control .

So at this price point , the CRV hybrid is a pretty attractive option because this is not a plug in hybrid , meaning you can't really plug it into a charger to top up its battery .

You can only charge this car while driving and you do that in two ways .

Firstly , by converting the excess energy from the engine up front .

And second of all , by recovering the energy produced by slowing the car down a process that's called regenerative braking .

And these two pedals here on the steering wheel , control the strength of the regenerative braking system , pull the left lever and that increases .

And you'll feel that as soon as you let go of the throttle , as you'll feel that the car is slowing down faster than usual and the more aggressive , the regenerative braking is the faster you top up the bar .

Now , the battery pack in this car is quite small .

It's one kilowatt hour and it takes quite a bit of driving to fully charge it up .

Well , once you do that , you can actually drive this car in full electric mode for a few kilometers or so .

And that's called E V mode , which is basically the mode in which the car starts up .

And also the mode in which the car tends to default to whenever it can provided that the battery is sufficiently charged .

But as soon as you become more aggressive with a throw pedal , the car will immediately switch on the petrol engine as well .

But the best thing about this car is it's comfort and refinement and I'm not going to hide behind words here and I'm just going to say it , it's fabulous .

The car switches between modes so seamlessly that you really have to pay attention to the instrument cluster in order to tell which driving mode you're in .

And the only noise you can hear barely is the engine when you accelerate this car hard .

Even at motorway speeds , there's very little wind noise or tire noise .

It's excellent .

And one of the reasons why this car is so quiet on the inside is because Honda fitted the new CRV with active noise cancellation .

The system uses the car's microphones to detect any booming noise inside the cabin and then it pumps out an anti noise signal through the car's speakers .

That's a system that's been on headphones for years now .

And after driving this car , I keep wondering why doesn't every single vehicle on the planet have this system ?

I mean , obviously I don't want this system on M cars or AM G S but you get the point .

This car is not that fast .

If I'm honest , it takes 8.8 seconds to reach 100 kilometers per hour from standstill .

But this is not really the car you want to be sporting because of its very comfortable suspension .

That means it leans quite a lot in the band and the steering is as you would expect , pretty numb .

But around town , thanks to this whole hybrid set up , throttle response is instant and the car feels quite agile and you don't really feel the need for extra power , but fuel efficient this car really is .

I mean , we're talking about a hybrid car that's supposed to be a diesel replacement , right ?

These are the figures I got in my week with the car as per usual , 70% of the mileage was done around town to work and back and the other 30% on roads and highways .

And if you ask me , it's not bad at all .

So now that I've praised this car quite a lot , it's time to take a look at some of the things I don't really like about it .

And I guess the first thing on the list would be the fact that it's not a plug in hybrid because I think if this car would have been a plug in hybrid , then even the fuel consumption would have been better .

Second point is the infotainment system .

I think Honda is really far behind these comparators in this department .

The graphics look kind of dated kind of old and the usability is not that good .

And I guess the lack of power tailgate is also a negative if you ask me , especially since most of its competitors have that .

But really , that's just nit picking because it's really difficult to fault this car , especially considering how much it costs , so how to sum up the CRV hybrid then .

Well , it's really a complete package .

Actually , it's comfortable , refined , spacious and practical and it's pretty well priced too .

But my favorite thing about it is that even though underneath it has quite a vast array of complex technologies , you won't be able to tell that once you're behind the wheel because they all work seamlessly together .

You just jump in , turn it on and the car does everything else for you .

I'm really impressed with what Honda has done with this hybrid CRV and I highly recommend you check it out if you're in the market for a mid size crossover SUV family thing .

But let me know your thoughts in the comments section below .

That's been it for today's video .

My friends .

I hope you've enjoyed it and please make sure you give this video a thumbs up if you liked it and subscribe to tuned into cars for lots more videos to come and until next time , take good care of yourselves and I'll see you around .