HONDA AUSTRALIA has announced that the Honda Jazz and City will be fitted with stability control as standard from late next year onwards.
When we tested a Honda City VTi-L last month, we thought it an unusual oversight that electronic stability control (or Vehicle Stability Assist, as Honda calls it) was not available anywhere in the range, even as a cost option.
Given both cars share the same platform and drivetrain setup, the Jazz suffers from the same omission and has attracted some negative press because of it.
However, Honda Australia has now confirmed that the Jazz and City will benefit from the skid-stopping technology from late 2010 onwards, when VSA will become standard equipment across both line-ups.
The base model Jazz GLi currently has a four-star ANCAP safety rating, while the Honda City has yet to be tested by ANCAP.
The Jazz is currently available in the UK with VSA as standard on upper spec models, while lower-rung variants are able to be optioned with it as a cost extra.
Honda Australia’s plan to make it available across the range at no additional expense is commendable, but the delay in its roll-out has perplexed some in the road-safety community.
But, as the old adage goes, it’s better late than never.
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Why bother giving publicity to something that is probably a year and a half away. The motoring public have many high quality alternatives available with stability control as standard or as an option, so do yourselves, your passengers, family and other road users a huge favour; ignore the Hondas in the same manner Honda themselves have. Sadly, a company no longer at the cuting edge ( and we own 1 Honda - with stability control )
Yo Peter,
Not sure you’re making the right call there. If the Honda FCX Clarity, Insight, and Civic Hybrid are not at the “cutting edge”, then neither is a razor blade. So too, engineers world-wide would seem to agree, are Honda’s amazingly efficient and rorty i-VTEC engines. (And ’saving the planet’ has surely got to be ‘up there’ on the old priorities list.)
Now re the point about ESC: the most expensive component in a modern car is the electronics. It becomes a question of priority - particularly in a global market that has turned to crap - where the available development funds land.
That said, I can’t say I’ve been in a Honda that hasn’t driven and steered somewhere at or near the top of its class.
At the risk of sounding like ‘a deny-er’ of sorts, there is a lot of politics in Victorian TAC campaigns and a whole lot of bald figures bandied about as blanket fact, when the real truth may lie in the granularity.
For instance, let’s look at the bald figures produced by the Victorian TAC in support of its latest campaign.
On its website it says:
“Australian research shows that ESC reduces the risk of:
Single car crashes by 25%
Single car crashes in which the driver was injured by 28%”
Putting to one side that I’m always wary of statements that support themselves with a lazy and vague “Australian research shows…” (which is about as scholarly as “they say…”), the questions I would have are: Did the research include the accident statistics of cars that were ten years old or more? If the statistics were limited to new cars, one or two years old, how would that alter the percentages? Likewise, for new and near-new passenger cars (not SUVs), if broken down into front-wheel drive, rear-wheel drive, and all-wheel drive, again, how would that alter the percentages? What was the condition of the tyres and brakes of the cars involved in the research sample? How many cars forming part of the statistics were older V8s with an inexperienced driver at the wheel?
There are a thousand more questions I’d want answered before I’d be jumping to any conclusions about my next purchase.
We get fed blanket generalisations as fact because it’s easier to market. I’m for safer cars, but I can’t stand being fed crap dressed up as research.
The Insider
The only reason I’m not buying a Honda Jazz is because it lacks stability control. I liked everything else about it. It’s a shame that Honda has taken so long to roll it out.