The Honda CR-V is Honda’s best-selling vehicle. It was also the best-selling crossover in America for 2 years in a row. Needless to say, it has been a hit. And now, Honda is releasing the first ever hybrid version of the CR-V. It might seem like a boring and simple product extension, but it’s massively important both for Honda and the car world in general.
Up until now, the go-to name in the Hybrid world has, of course, been the Toyota Prius. Of course many other vehicles have been hybridized over the last 5 years, many of them mainstream bestsellers like the Honda Accord, the Porsche Cayenne, and the Ford Fusion. But although the cars they were based on sold in huge numbers, those hybrids never really moved off the lots in any appreciable numbers. When someone said “hybrid,” you and everyone else thought of the Prius.
Those cars were never the CR-V however. The Honda CR-V is basically a suburban institution. 43 new CR-Vs are sold every hour in this country, and probably trade at twice that rate on the used market. The CR-V is quite literally the mid-sized SUV that all others are judged by. I should know — it’s my job to do the judging.
For Honda to hybridize its most popular vehicle tells me three things: it believes hybrid has a brighter future than pure electric, the technology and execution will be superb, and this thing is going to sell like gangbusters. Indeed, given the fact that the Hybrid CR-V is going to improve gas mileage by 50% over the pure gasoline model, I won’t be surprised if non-hybrid versions become rarer than a profit from Uber.
For the best-selling SUV hybrid to go hybrid is a massive data point in the trend towards electrification. The Toyota Prius was introduced and immediately sold like crazy, but no other hybrid – whether hybrid-only cars like the Honda Insight or converted hybrids like the Toyota Camry – has really taken off. The Prius was a bit like a one-hit-wonder or a genre-defining band that created a new category. Well now the rock star is coming out with their version, and the mainstream will never be the same again.
BYD has launched the third-generation Qin Plus DM-i in China, and the first thing that caught my eye is its price. According to CarNewsChina, the plug-in hybrid sedan starts at 79,900 yuan, which is about $11,980. That’s an incredibly low price for a brand-new car, especially by US standards.
What’s even more impressive is the range. The Qin Plus DM-i can drive up to 137 miles on electricity alone, which should cover most people’s daily commutes without using a drop of gas. Once the battery runs out, the 1.5-liter engine takes over. Thanks to its 17-gallon tank and roughly 91 mpg with a drained battery, the combined range reaches up to 1,423 miles.
Apple won the PC market’s worst quarter, but that’s not the entire story. It won the race by stumbling less than everyone else.
PC makers shipped just 57 million computers worldwide in Q3, which might look good, but it’s a 21% year-over-year plunge (via Counterpoint Research). And despite Apple’s Mac shipments falling by 11%, to 5.6 million, its market share rose from 8.7% to 9.8%. How did that happen?
Update (October 22 23:54 PT): In response to our query, GM clarified that offline recording support is already available on eligible vehicles. Like Tesla's Sentry Mode, it requires owners to connect a USB drive to save incident recordings, which can be viewed on the vehicle's infotainment screen. The upcoming Connected Cameras feature will build on this by giving owners remote access to these recordings via the revamped OnStar app, allowing them to check footage without walking out to their car.
General Motors has announced plans to add a new Connected Cameras feature to its OnStar service starting next year, giving drivers a way to monitor parked vehicles remotely and capture footage of certain incidents.