Honda last revamped its subcompact Fit hatchback for the 2015 model year, tossing the entry-level model a styling refresh for 2018. Now, there’s a new Fit on the block (or Jazz, depending on market), but its availability in the U.S. remains a question mark.
Sales of most subcompact cars have followed a trajectory traced by their compact and midsize stablemates, and it points nowhere but down. If Honda feels it’s worthwhile shipping the Fit across U.S. borders, what you see here could be yours.
Unveiled at the Tokyo Motor Show on Wednesday, the 2020 Fit is undoubtedly the smallest Honda to adopt a floating roof design. It’s also the smallest Honda currently in the lineup to boast a hybrid drivetrain (RIP, previous-gen Insight).
The model revealed in Tokyo carries Honda’s two-motor hybrid system. For Europeans, this is the only powertrain available; specs remain unknown at this time. Honda claims its e:HEV setup allows for fully electric driving in “virtually all situations of everyday driving,” so that’s an interesting addition to the subcompact class. Such technology normally warrants a higher price, which further dims the Fit’s U.S. prospects — assuming the brand doesn’t have a gas-only solution in mind.
While the front of the fourth-generation Fit’s greenhouse brings to mind GM’s 1990s Dustbuster minivans (or perhaps European small cars of the past decade or so), the vehicle’s front end is something of a departure from the brand’s design language. Honda intends the Fit to set the standard of small-car excellence. Offered in five trims in Japan — Basic, Home, Ness, Luxe, and crossover-mimicking Crosstar — the new Fit places the fuel tank beneath the front seats, allowing owners to flip up the rear seat bottom to muscle tall items into the backseat.
Those seats, by the way, are of a body-stabilizing design borrowed from development of the brand’s premium cars. Fatigue will become a thing of the past, Honda claims. A suit of Honda Sensing driver-assist and safety features should make the trip all the more stress-free.
Beyond that, there’s little else to tell you. Honda hasn’t loosened its lips about American availability, and until it does, any specs pertaining to the car’s hybrid drivetrain aren’t of much use to the reader. Not that we have any.
Fit sales peaked in the U.S. in 2008, a year in which the little hatch sold nearly 80,000 units. Since then, it’s been a gradual decline, with last year’s volume sitting at just over 35,000. Despite the recent refresh, Fit sales are down 17.2 percent through the end of September.
[Images: Honda]
Americans like to buy their vehicles by the pound. More is better. Same as with their women.
Some of us have figured out the superiority of imports.
Are we talking about mail-order brides here?
loveme.com
I suspect that American women’s preference for guys who drive a pickup truck is aspirational, in the sense that it points towards a hoped future where only the 5,000 towing capacity of the vehicle will be capable of propelling the couples’ joint weight forward.
These pedestrian safety design compromises are absolutely brutal on such tiny cars. The hood looks like it would come up to at least my waist, with that big flat front. And so the whole beltline now has to be raised, meaning smaller windows. So outwards visibility, one of the Fit’s strong suits, is now a weak point.
To protest, I will mount a roo bar on mine. Take that pedestrian safety!
I look to Machine Gun Joe Viterbo for inspiration.
See, I think the MX-30 from earlier today looks much better.
That front end is best described as “unfortunate.”
The Nissan Versa saw the front end of the Fit, and is now ROFL.
I like it. It’s upright with a nice green house and I appreciate that it doesn’t have a weird mishmash of body lines or “angry eyes” for headlights.
This will be the first unattractive Fit and that’s pretty sad. This really looks more like a Nisan Versa than a new generation Fit.
I was never actually going to buy one anyway, so I guess my opinion ultimately doesn’t matter.
It looks European. Ugh.
The current Fit is easily Honda’s worse model. The ride dynamics are terrible-even for a small vehicle.
All Fits look like an econo penalty box. This is nothing in the pics to even suggest this new direction will help.
The sales volume on the current model is VERY LOW.
I wish I could disagree, as it is a very useful and convenient small car. But there are compromises, that’s true.
Have you forgotten about the HR-V? Take all the Fit’s flaws, raise the ground clearance, and charge an extra couple thousand for the privilege of buying one. Hopefully the 2.0 helps highway noise, because that’s one of the few redeeming features.
Holy heck, this is the first Honda in a long time that I whole heartedly like the design. No silly bucktooth grill, no obnoxious nonsensical cutlines, no freaking multi-jewel LED lights that spray light everywhere and blind people.
This looks like one character to me – Dumbo!
I like the interior as pictured, for this price point. Definitely not the penalty box of yore – I’ve driven many of them! Also, people like me who prefer cloth must be dying out just like the manuals.
For the Fit to go complete EV takes away its biggest complaints, acceleration and interior noise. I live in a city of tight parking spots and concrete pillars, this would be awesome for us.
Stuntmoneky-
EVERY single review I have read-states it rides terrible, especially on Interstates. Hopefully-they have tuned and designed the new Fit where it’s more stable (this compliant is from Interstate testing-the Fit is high and narrow) and rides better.
CKNSLS –
That was generally true of all 90’s Civic hatches as well, it was just something that we accepted back in the day, but not now. If this Fit concept was scaled up to the Civic platform it would be my ideal next “green car”. Where I live “green” means increasing urban density and mass transit… a car is still necessary but it doesn’t have to be huge anymore. Every spot I park in anywhere is small and tight and has a concrete post next to it.
I think road and wind noise is a bigger concern than engine noise for this car.
Those taillights look like they’re trying to ape the i3, slightly.
What’s the difference between the white one and the bluish one. The grilles are different?
Also, bravo for not going full Civic and making a car that’s trying too hard to be “exciting.” The looks to be a perfectly cromulent little runabout. Not something I’d like to own, but something I can respect.