Of wine and efficiency

When it comes to good wine, it is said that it gets better with age. This standard also applies to port wines that come from the Alto Douro region in the Portuguese Douro Valley. It takes its name from the coastal Portuguese city of Porto, to which it was traditionally shipped after production for maturation, storage and distribution.

Porto was also recently where Honda introduced what is now the sixth generation CR-V. The brand’s largest SUV has been a best-seller since it was introduced in 1995; You could say it was good from the start. But since change is the only constant, the CR-V has now been comprehensively revamped.

The biggest innovation is the front-wheel drive version now available, which costs 60,990 euros and in which a 148 hp four-cylinder engine, which works according to the Atkinson principle, is combined with a 184 hp electric unit.

High priority has been given to efficiency, explains Honda Europe’s Kotaro Yamamoto. The WLTP consumption of the Chinese-made PHEV is 0.8 litres, and the purely electric range of the precisely controlled and wonderfully suspended front-wheel drive car is 80 kilometres.

Alternatively, Honda also offers the 4,706-metre-long CR-V as a hybrid version; Either with front-wheel drive (from €51,990) or as an all-wheel drive variant (from €55,490). Here the battery is installed under the luggage compartment, which is why the volume of the luggage compartment is slightly smaller (596 litres) compared to the plug-in (the battery is located under the passengers and the storage space is 635 litres).

By the way, an extensive safety fleet called Honda Sensing is always on board. Order books have already been opened and the first vehicles are expected to reach customers soon.