Honda Jazz 1.5 i-MMD Hybrid EX Style 2022 UK first drive

Despite all the recent sales troubles for Honda, and its vastly reduced number of models on offer in the UK, it’s good to see it hasn't abandoned the Honda-ness of its cars. The feeling that no matter what, this thing will run reliably for aeons.

It’s no different in this lightly fettled Honda Jazz. It’s a new trim level, with the EX Style (as opposed to plain EX, the only other trim on offer these days) offering a few external additions but not fundamentally changing the Jazz formula. Incidentally, you can’t get the Style upgrade in the bumpered Crosstar version.

For £25,940, you get a black pack kit, with that colour running across the wing mirrors, body-side mouldings, rear spoiler and roof. It also features black/silver alloys, measuring 185/55 R16.

It’s hardly the most radical set of additions, nor has it endowed the car with much more street cred, while the price pushes it ahead of its main rival, the Toyota Yaris. An Excel trim in that car costs £23,790.

Still, with diddier wheels as standard, the Honda emits just 84g/km compared with the Toyota’s 98g/km, so you save yourself a couple of percentage points on the BIK.

The Jazz interior remains the same, with full connectivity via Apple CarPlay or Android Auto and a nine-inch touchscreen. Mercifully, there’s a physical volume button and climate control switches, but a lot of functions are also controlled from the steering wheel.

The Jazz’s party trick - the clever folding, flipping rear seats - still features, but the boot isn’t vast. There’s enough room for Granny’s shopping, or the Bichon Frise on the way back from the groomer’s, but not much else.

A dual-motor hybrid set-up remains, made up of an electric drive motor and an integrated starter-generator. This yields 107bhp and 187lb ft, giving a 0-62mph time of 9.5sec, marginally ahead of the Yaris.

Weirdly, for a supermini designed to take on the urban sprawl, the engine is most coarse around town with quite a gravelly grumble. Sitting at traffic lights, and with the engine running (not as infrequent as you’d hope), it’s not as whisper-quiet as it should be. But once up to speed, 40mph-plus, it’s better and it settles into the background a bit more.

Electric-only running is possible up to about 25mph and at just about the sort of acceleration that you don’t feel like you’re holding people up. From there, the ICE kicks in, although it does disconnect again on a trailing throttle at 30mph.