Honda's CR-Z hybrid hot hatch was too far ahead of its time to succeed

Ferrari has them, so does Porsche, Lamborghini and Mercedes-AMG. These days hybrid sports cars are all the rage but one of the first on the scene was a major flop.

Or perhaps the Honda CR-Z was just the right car at the wrong time, arriving too early to find an accepting audience. The CR-Z was a hybrid hot hatch, a concept that was so cutting-edge when it was launched and it’s only now, a decade after it arrived, that other brands are trying their own petrol-electric compact performance cars. The Cupra Leon VZe plug-in hybrid that arrives later this year is arguably the closest car in concept to the CR-Z since its demise in 2014.

So what went wrong with the CR-Z? Why did a car that makes so much sense in today’s automotive landscape fail so spectacularly a decade ago?

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It arrived with a lot of hype, with Honda very deliberately leaning into the nostalgia for its 1980s cult classic CR-X but with the twist of a very future-friendly powertrain. It won critical acclaim too, taking out several car of the year awards around the world.

However, despite this, sales of the CR-Z started slowly and only got worse from there. In 2012, its first full year on sale, it found only 370 buyers in Australia, dropping to just 58 in 2013 and only 86 in 2014; which is when Honda dropped it from its local line-up.

It was a disappointing failure for Honda and it’s hard to pinpoint the exact reason, but the ‘bang-for-your-buck’ may have turned people off. The CR-Z was priced from $34,990 before on-road costs when it arrived in 2012, which was competitive in comparison to the likes of the more-conventional Volkswagen Golf GTI, which was priced from $41,490 for the new-for-2013 model.

However, the Golf was very much a five-door, five-seat hot hatch, whereas the CR-Z was a ‘2+2’ two-door layout - car company code for ‘it’s a two-seater with some in-name-only seats in the back’.

The other issue was the performance, because while the concept of a fuel-saving performance powertrain sounds great in theory, in practice it was a bit underwhelming. The combination of the 1.5-litre four-cylinder petrol engine and the electric motor made just 91kW and 174Nm.

That didn’t stack up well against the likes of the Golf GTI, punching out 162kW/350Nm from its 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbo at the time.

The complex CR-Z powertrain also added weight, so what was a small car ended up tipping the scales at a relatively hefty 1160kg. Naturally, the combination of modest power and significant weight meant it was as sprightly as it could be, taking a lethargic 9.7 seconds to sprint to 100km/h from standstill.

What it did do well was frugality, sipping just 5.3 litres per 100km with the manual transmission. Which was perhaps the ultimate problem - the CR-Z ended up being tipped too far towards its eco-friendly side and not enough towards sportiness.

Although, in fairness to the CR-Z, Honda was struggling through a difficult period with its hybrid models at this stage, so not all of the blame for its failure can be put on the specific model.

The likes of Ferrari, McLaren and co. are using electric motors to not only save fuel but also boost performance, by either filling in gaps in the torque curve or providing extra help to the already-powerful petrol engine when needed.

Perhaps in hindsight, Honda would have been better trying to fit a bigger, more powerful engine like the 2.0-litre four-pot it used in the Civic Type R. It made more than double the amount of power, and Honda could have used the electric motor to save fuel or boost performance wherever the engine needed help.

The arrival of the Cupra Leon plug-in hybrid is proof the CR-Z was ahead of its time. And more brands will follow Cupra’s lead, with the expectation that most hot hatches will add some form of electrification in the coming years as the quest for both performance and economy forces car makers down that path.

Which is cold comfort for the short-live CR-Z, but a win for Honda in the end.