I believe he traded in for a Camry Hybrid, which seems to have solved most of the design drawbacks associated with both the Gen-1 and Gen-2 HCH. My family got our HCH when it was the only hybrid option in a somewhat normal looking 4-door, in 2002, but if I were to make that decision now I'd definitely go with the Camry.
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Mileage at no speed. Does not auto-stop when the engine is cold. Does not auto-stop within 30 seconds of the car being started (even with fully warmed engine). Does not auto-stop if it auto-stopped recently and the car hasn't reached 9 miles per hour, except once. Sometimes it auto-stops when the car slows to a stop, but when it finally hits 0 miles per hour the engine inexplicably starts up again (highly irritating). The engine runs when the car is in reverse or even in Park (I suspect because you have to move past R to shift into P).
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this has always bugged me, they should have programmed the Reverse position to only restart the engine if the brake is released, problem solved. Auto-stop kicking in at inappropriate times is my biggest gripe about the car. The most alarming is when I roll up to a stop sign, pause to check cross-traffic, auto-stop kicks in, and I hit the gas to turn onto a busy intersection. Unfortunately, I have to wait for the RPMs to drop THEN restart, THEN for the clutch to engage. By the time the cltuch engages, the engine is revved up so much the wheels start spinning if it's wet! (no longer the case with my non-LRR tires) By the time the car starts moving, I'm cutting it close to make a turn that should have already been made. To get around this dangerous flaw, I have to do a wacky "double-tap" of the brakes at stop lights where I'll be turning.
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Mileage at high speeds. I have seen 36-42 mpg at 75-80 miles per hour at various times. 40-42 is fine, though not great, but it doesn't always get even that. It depends on hills, I think. And on a 82-88 miles per hour drive over 900 miles, the car got 32-34 mpg. That's with tires at 50 PSI by the way.
Hill-climbing. The engine needs to rev very high to go over hills, making it very loud, high-pitched, and somewhat distressing. 4000-6000 rpm to climb a hill at 70 miles per hour?
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These are both related, and the same applies with driving moderate speeds with lots of accessory load. They should have gone with a 1.5-1.8l displacement to be able to comfortably handle higher sustained loads IMHO. (See Camry Hybrid)
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Acceleration. It's slow. And if the battery is less than half full, it's REALLY slow.
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This could be improved with a slightly larger electric motor. (Camry Hybrid again)
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Jerkiness. Regenerative braking made my car very jerky, both when it engaged and when it disengaged. Each time I tap the gas pedal, there's a jolt. Releasing it also causes a jolt. Auto-stop is even worse as you can't even move forward until about a second after releasing the brake pedal.
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In-gear coasting should incur no regenerative charging unless explicitly requested by a switch on the transmissoin lever, or when braking (Camry...)
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Quiet. Surprisingly so, even at high speeds. The engine can get loud, especially when going uphill, but wind noise is not alot.
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This seems to be an improvement over the Gen-1 HCH. Mine is quite noisy. Much of this is because I need to replace some rubber on the drivers-side window (passenger side is much quieter at the same speeds... I discovered this when I let someone else drive my car recently), but even aside from that I got lots of road noise stock. I'm actually in the process of improving this greatly by lining some of the sheet metal, and the plastic underbody paneling with foam to deaden the resonance.
Anyway, enough complaints, on the whole I like my car very much. Here are a few things I like about my HCH-1:
- Body style and Paint (Titanium Metallic) -- which are in my opinion the nicest of any hybrid I've seen, HCH-2 in dark blue being a close second.
- Handling -- It was good before, but with my newest tire replacement, my car handles amazingly around turns, provides excellent steering feedback, and the electric power steering is crisp and smooth.
- CVT Transmission -- Though this is on just about every hybrid, I love how my car doesn't need to gear-hunt when climbing the many hills up to my house like an automatic. For climbing slow-speed hills, RPMs are pegged squarely in the low-mid 2000RPM range the whole time.
- Available parts/accessories -- since the body is a typical Civic, there's a wide selection of 3rd party parts and accessories available. The Camry should have this advantage as well.