Honda's stated objective for the new 3G City's performance is for it to offer "Class leading performance". This is characterized by 1) powerful starting acceleration and 2) superior passenger comfort at cruising speed. The HRT City LPL made numerous references to a gutsy but relaxing feeling when driving the new City.

The first part, 'powerful starting acceleration' is exactly what I was referring to when I talked about the 'soft' take-off with the CVT-7 gearbox in my preview article for this City just before its official launch. As I explained there, mainly because Honda wanted to avoid that 'rocking horse' effect, the 2G City had a 'slow' take-off from stationary. The CVT gearbox feels 'lazy' and anaemic from standstill, even with throttle buried hard against the floor. I think this is also to avoid too much stress on the start-up clutch as starting off from standstill is when the greatest stress occurs.

So, the new 3G City should offer a more forceful 'surge' upon throttle kickdown from standstill or low speeds. This is also partially a property of the torque converter which the new regular 5AT uses. For in-gear in-speed pick-up like for overtaking, etc, the more 'fast kick-down' should also enhance this feeling by downshifting for greater acceleration. This is what HRT calls the 'gutsy' feeling though as I mentioned in my preview, this can give a false sense of 'good power' from the car because it can quickly fall flat when the car is asked to sustain that 'power'. It remains to be seen whether my expectations will be true in the upcoming media drive.

For myself (and a number of enthusiasts), the replacement of the CVT-7 gearbox with a normal 5AT is a big dissapointment in the new City. As I suspected, Honda's official reason for the use of 5AT versus CVT is to get more 'grunt', like what I explained above (and in my preview). The 5AT can also be more representative of sporty driving to many drivers, as the ability to shift thru gears is more reminscent of a manual transmission.

Still, I don't fully agree with Honda - that the disadvantage of 5AT versus CVT is only in terms of loss of 'smoothness' as they insisted. With the same power, over long WOT runs, a CVT gives a superior method of delivering engine power to the driving wheels and ultimately the car will be faster. In this case, the new L15A i-VTEC engine is more powerful and more torquey while the new 3G City is also around the same weight. So over short and quick WOT sprints, say in gear 2nd to 3rd or 3rd to 4th, then the superior power and torque of the new L15A i-VTEC might give better short-term straight line performance over the CVT. It is clear Honda tries to enhance this by tuning of the gearbox behaviour - the faster kick-down to WOT as mentioned above. But once we go into the realm of sustained WOT runs, the ability of the CVT to hold rpm at max power point while adjusting gear ratio for optimal acceleration is something the 5AT might not be able to overcome, even with 10ps more from the engine. Just like the opera singer who can hold a very high pitch note and sustain it for seemingly forever, the old 2G City will scream at max power rpm for as long as the throttle is floored. And while normal singers will have to stop often to take deep breathes, the 5AT too will have to often change gears once the rev-limit is reached. Which will be ultimately faster is quite an open question at this point and I look forward to being able to settle this question in the near future.