What's the difference?
Honda built its four-wheeled automotive empire on the back of small cars, flying in the face of 1970s convention that bigger was better. As the ubiquitous Civic grew larger and larger, a niche for a smaller car appeared, and that niche was subsequently filled by the City in sedan guise, and the Jazz hatch that sits alongside it.
The buying public, however, is simply not as interested as it once was in small hatches and sedans, and Honda, along with other importers, is feeling the pinch when it comes to slumping sales for its smaller models.
But are we all missing out on something here? After all, the Thai-built City is priced from a rock-bottom $15,990 in base manual form – which is not a lot of money for a Honda.
We’re trying the range-topping, $21,590 VTi-L to see what we may have been missing.
Electrified utes are growing in popularity in Australia and carmakers have been paying attention.
While the BYD Shark 6 plug-in hybrid (PHEV) ute is by far the best-selling as it stands, there hasn’t really been any electric ute to go up against the poorly received LDV eT60, until now.
South Korea’s KGM (formerly known as SsangYong) has just launched the Musso EV, which is a purely electric dual-cab ute. It’s unrelated to the existing, turbo-diesel Musso and is more closely related to the current car-based Actyon and Torres SUVs.
Read along to see how this ute stacks up against its growing set of competitors.
Small sedan sales are on the wane, and as a result, the cars that remain in the market often aren’t the best in a brand’s lineup.
This is the case with the Honda City. While it’s got plenty of space for passengers and it’s economical, the performance of the drivetrain in terms of composure leaves a lot to be desired.
The underdone steering, too, makes the car uncomfortable for passengers more often than not, while the buggy, hard-to-use multimedia system is unforgivable in an almost-$22,000 car.
Put it this way… the larger, newer, more refined base model Honda Civic is tantalisingly close in price to the top-spec City, and we know which side of the dealership we’d be walking towards.
Despite having the Musso name, this electric ute is a completely different beast which is much more lifestyle-oriented than the older and unrelated turbo-diesel Musso workhorse.
There really isn’t much competition out there right now in the electric ute space but this makes a compelling case, especially for those looking in the fleet space. It has an appealing price, adequate range, SUV-like comfort and decent payload capacity.