2024 Honda Accord Hybrid Reviews, Pricing & Specs

In Canada, the 2024 Honda Accord Hybrid is available in Sport and Touring trim levels and costs from $43,462 to $46,962, including a charge of $1,830 for destination in addition to other delivery fees. Both trims come well-equipped, and the Touring boasts touches of luxury and exclusive technology.

With the new 2023 Honda Accord redesign, the automaker replaced the car’s tautly penned and sporty styling with a clean and technical look that looks best paired with the machined-finish 19-inch wheels on the hybrids. These wheels fill out the car’s wheel wells and reduce the visual mass of its slab-sided flanks.

Our Honda Accord Hybrid Touring test car arrived wearing Canyon River Blue metallic paint. In Canada, this colour and every other one but Meteroid Grey will run you $300 extra. Black leather is your only choice for the interior. It had none of the dealer-installed accessories, so the manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP) comes to $47,262, including the destination charge.

With the black interior, Honda successfully lightens the mood with a grey headliner, grey contrast stitching, metallic finishes, and an artful mesh trim strip that hides the dashboard air vents. While the plastic covering the lower portions of the cabin looks too shiny for a $45,000 car, the Accord Touring’s ‘Acura Lite’ interior impressed us.

Honda installs the latest version of its two-motor hybrid powertrain in the 2024 Accord Hybrid. It pairs a 2.0-litre four-cylinder gasoline engine with two electric motors, one charged with propulsion and one serving as an electrical generator and engine starter. The powertrain does not have a conventional automatic transmission, though from the driver’s seat, you wouldn’t know it.

So, how does this setup work? Honda explains it best (note: US review links to a tech explainer here), but the TL;DR is the gasoline engine acts as an onboard generator most of the time, its output converted to electricity by the generator/starter motor to power the car’s front wheels through the propulsion motor. Some of that converted energy is also used to recharge the Accord Hybrid’s lithium-ion battery pack as you drive.

There are nuances to how this drivetrain operates, but let’s not cloud the issue. What you care about is how it feels from behind the steering wheel, and the answer is simple: Normal. Honda has even programmed simulated gear changes to make its fourth-generation two-motor hybrid sound more traditional to the driver’s ear. However, the Accord Hybrid comes only with front-wheel drive (FWD); all-wheel drive (AWD) is unavailable.

Total output measures 204 horsepower and 247 lb-ft of torque, the latter available from zero to 2,000 rpm. That instantaneous electric-motor torque helps the Accord Hybrid accelerate enthusiastically from a stop, especially since the car weighs about 1,587 kilograms (3,500 pounds), depending on the trim level. In city driving and during the stop-and-go commute, the Accord Hybrid is zippy and satisfying to drive. Accelerating onto highways isn’t a problem, though when revving the gas engine isn’t a treat for the senses. Cruising at extra-legal speeds is effortless, and during our testing the Accord Hybrid had no trouble climbing local mountain grades.

According to Natural Resources Canada, the Accord Hybrid returns 5.3 litres per 100 kilometres in combined driving. During our testing, the Touring returned 5.5 L/100 km, making it remarkably fuel-efficient for a sedan of this size even if it falls a little short of the official estimate.

Dynamically, the Accord Touring impresses. Like all Hondas, it displays a deft blend of ride and handling characteristics that make the car easy to trust and enjoyable to drive. With every turn of the steering wheel, press of the regenerative braking system’s pedal, and curve or lump in the road, the Accord feels responsive, natural, and honed to perfection. During our test, these qualities and more made it an excellent daily driver.

Comfort is high on the list of reasons to buy a Honda Accord, though taller people will wonder why the driver’s seat doesn’t move farther back. If you’re over six feet tall, you might feel the Accord is unwelcoming, which is silly considering how much rear legroom there is.

Nevertheless, every Accord sold in Canada has a 10-way power-adjustable driver’s seat and heated front seats. Each Accord Hybrid comes with a heated steering wheel, but ventilated front seats and heated outboard rear seats are exclusive to the Accord Touring.

Both front seats are comfortable and offer plenty of leg support. Also, though the front passenger’s seat does not provide height adjustment, people who usually complain about that omission did not with our test car.

Still, it is the rear passengers who ride like kings thanks to the vast amounts of legroom and headroom, tall perches on a supportive cushion, and a perfect backrest angle. The Touring’s air conditioning vents and USB charging ports help to keep them happy, and the wide-opening doors make entering and exiting the car easy.

Interior storage space is excellent, though the driver’s seatback lacks a storage pocket, displeasing a teenager typically assigned to that location during family outings. Use the remote keyless entry fob to open the cavernous trunk, and the lid rises fully, though it’s not power-operated. Cargo space measures 473 litres, surpassing all rivals in the Accord’s class.

Every 2024 Accord Hybrid has a 10.2-inch digital instrumentation display paired with a 12.3-inch touchscreen infotainment system. Standard features include wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, Alexa Built-in, and HondaLink subscription services with access to a Wi-Fi hotspot. An eight-speaker stereo is also standard, except with Touring trim.

The Accord Touring has several exclusive features, including an impressive 12-speaker Bose premium sound system, a wireless smartphone charger, and a 6-inch head-up display. In addition, it is the only Accord to boast Google Built-in with Google Maps, Google Assistant, and Google Play Store.

Normally, any infotainment system equipped with Google Built-in provides a good, if not great, voice recognition test experience. However, in this test car, Google Assistant regularly told us: “Oops, something went wrong.” We tried Alexa, too, but without success. So, we switched back over to Apple CarPlay and Siri for a seamless user experience.

We like the Accord’s no-nonsense digital instrumentation because what it lacks in visual pizzazz it makes up for in practicality. For example, it shows you when the car’s headlights and taillights are on, when the turn signals are active, and when the brake lights are illuminated. It should be impossible for an attentive driver to fail to turn this car’s lights on or drive with the turn signal blinking for no apparent reason.

Safety matters in a family sedan, and the 2024 Accord Hybrid delivers with a Top Safety Pick+ rating from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS). However, thanks to its standard Honda Sensing collection of driver-assistance features, the Accord should prove as adept at avoiding a collision as it is protecting you during one.

Honda Sensing equips the Accord Hybrid with automatic high-beam headlights, forward collision warning, automatic emergency braking, lane-departure warning, lane-keeping assist, lane-centring assist, blind-spot monitoring, rear cross-traffic alert, and adaptive cruise control with traffic-jam assist. Moving up to Touring trim adds parking sensors and low-speed automatic braking to avoid bumper bumps.

During a morning drive, the bright morning sun challenged Honda Sensing’s lane assist features. Fortunately, both the digital instrumentation display and the head-up display clearly communicated the status of the safety features at any given time. Unfortunately, the car’s traffic-jam assist feature worked only intermittently due to our eastward commute into the rising sun, and when operational it seemed unsure of itself.

In addition, in the thickening traffic with the adaptive cruise control set to its closest following distance, it still leaves enough of a gap ahead to allow impatient commuters to sneak into the space in front of the Accord. In turn, this irritates the impatient commuters behind the Accord.

At one point, as we changed lanes to pass slower traffic, Honda Sensing issued a false forward-collision warning and briefly activated the automatic emergency braking system. Less irritating, but still in that category, is that the steering wheel cannot sense your hands on it. Instead, to tell the lane-centring system you’re still gripping the wheel, you must make small steering corrections to avoid warnings from the technology.

Ultimately, we found the Accord more rewarding to drive with reduced use of Honda Sensing’s adaptive cruise control and lane-centring assistance. However, on a longer trip on uncrowded roads, we're sure it is helpful.

Few midsize sedans remain available, and as of this writing, only the Toyota Camry lineup offers a hybrid-powered rival to the Accord Hybrid.

With lower prices, a simpler powertrain, better fuel economy, and more expressive styling, the Toyota Camry Hybrid makes a good case for consideration. But it is smaller inside, offers less cargo room, isn’t quite as safe, and lacks the attention to detail evident in the Accord. Is it worth paying a premium to obtain those qualities in a hybrid sedan? Only you can make that determination.

However, if you decide to get a new 2024 Honda Accord Hybrid, rest assured it is a satisfying choice that you’re unlikely to regret.

Note: Images show a US model.