Honda hopes its $3 billion investment in its Ohio hybrid plant is about to pay off. The company certainly needs it to, as the Japan-based automaker today finally announced the 2028 Honda CR-V is on the way. This is the seventh generation of the popular crossover, and let’s get serious real quick: This car is massively important for Honda. The company has moved more than 400,000 CR-Vs annually for three years in a row, so getting the new one right is of utmost importance to the bottom line. The most important aspect is that Honda will only offer customers the 2028 CR-V in hybrid form. Highly likely not by chance, this move follows the path Toyota charted when it introduced an all-hybrid RAV4 lineup for the 2026 model year. Hybrid models already represent more than half of all CR-V sales, and about 30 percent of all Honda models sold are hybrids. In other words, the automaker is rather safely hedging its bets on this move. Honda says the new 2028 CR-V will be powered by its fifth-generation two-motor hybrid system, the successor to the powertrain used in the existing version of its compact SUV. The CR-V will again use two motors and an Atkinson-cycle four-cylinder engine. However, this time the available all-wheel-drive system has an electric motor driving the rear wheels rather than a mechanical connection as found in the soon to be old AWD CR-V Hybrid. Engine displacement and power output of the new CR-V’s Honda Hybrid system are unknown, but we figure it will at least match the existing model’s 204 hp and 247 lb-ft of torque. Honda says both the engine’s and the hybrid system’s peak efficiency ranges increase compared to before. To the point, Honda says it aimed to improve the 2028 CR-V Hybrid’s fuel economy by more than 10 percent. Today’s model yields 43/36/40 mpg city/highway/combined with FWD, and 40/34/37 mpg city/highway/combined with AWD if we look at its EPA mpg ratings. This means a 10 percent increase would bring those figures up to 47/40/44 mpg and 44/37/41, respectively. Our back-of-the-napkin math indicates the new 2028 CR-V’s fuel economy will finally be closer to the hybrid-only Toyota RAV4’s EPA-rated figures of 47/40/43 mpg (FWD) and 46/39/42 mpg (AWD). As for other changes? Despite the confirmation of the redesigned SUV’s hybrid-only powertrain, other details on the next-generation 2028 Honda CR-V remain scant. Honda confirmed the seventh-generation CR-V will be underpinned by a new platform with the aim of improving rigidity and lightness. A teaser image shows the CR-V logo adopting a new font, suggesting the compact crossover could also deliver edgier styling than we get with today’s conservative model. The paint beneath the badge appears to be a new metallic blue, presumably the seventh-generation SUV’s launch color.
Liked by Adam Harris, Thomas Morgan
Liked by Adam Harris, Thomas Morgan
Liked by Adam Harris, Thomas Morgan
