The new Honda Accord might be good enough to make us like sedans again

Are you struggling to get hits on Tinder? Second dates? Do I have the car for you!

The 11th-generation Honda Accord has arrived, in Meteoroid Grey Metallic. But hang on, before you swipe left, Honda describes the exterior design concept as “creative black tie”, with styling “designed to make the driver appear accomplished and appealing”.

Does this work? Well, during my week with it, I didn’t exactly have bouquets of roses hurled my way or flurries of job offers crashing my inbox.

But I wouldn’t have been embarrassed if I had.

The new Accord looks objectively good and sleek, with perhaps shades of the later-model Ford Falcon about the nose.

It’s long too, a point I discovered when I parked it too close to the wall one time and had to walk the whole way around the car. I was pretty sure I had missed the Federal election in that time.

So it is a bit of a pity that – like the Model-T Ford – you can have it any colour so long as it’s Platinum White, Lunar Silver, Crystal Black, or Meteoroid Grey.

It’s the way with Honda nowadays. The brand has been paring back options ostensibly to make things simpler for the consumer.

For instance, most dealerships up to this point are franchises, but Honda has recently switched to an agency model, where the brand owns the cars and assigns every model a fixed RRP, so there’s no wriggle room for negotiation.

And just as with the latest Civic, there is one model of Accord available in Australia: the e:HEV RS, available for $64,900 drive-away.

For reference, that’s a good few thousand more than the last model, and well above the price of its arch-rival, the Toyota Camry, which starts from $53,990 in its poshest ‘SL’ iteration.

But I guess it makes sense. It’s not an SUV, so the Accord is never going to be the best seller it once was, so Honda may as well put all its effort into making one really good version. And that’s exactly what they’ve done.

I’ve had two Hondas on test so far, the Civic hatch and the ZR-V SUV, and I’ve loved both of them for the same reason.

From the solid clunk of the indicator stalk to the finely milled finish of the honeycomb air-conditioning vent that runs the length of the dash, everything is superbly made. It makes even some of the poshest Germans feel like they were slapped together on Christmas Eve.

The only thing that triggered my OCD was the fact the gear lever is tilted towards the driver by five degrees, at least until I discovered that’s to allow bigger items to fit in the cupholders. Your date’s Stanley water bottle, maybe.

Apart from the 12.3-inch touchscreen which – joy of joys – uses Google software, another key feature is the rotating dial smack bang in the middle of the dash, which might look like a fancy clock but actually allows you to swivel between different driver profiles and seat and air-conditioning settings to set up the cockpit exactly as you like it within seconds.

You’d think the sloping roofline would also hamper space in the rear seats, but they’re actually tucked far enough back that you could easily fit two Lebron Jameses in there. As it was, it passed our usual test of two kiddie seats with flying colours.

From here, it gets a bit complicated.

Toyota might have been the first to bring the hybrid to the masses with the first Prius in 1997, but Honda wasn’t far behind with the Insight in 1999. So it’s not too surprising they’ve become very good at it. And applied a tonne of engineering to make it all as smooth as microwaved butter.

The Accord uses Honda’s “fourth-generation” hybrid system, which combines a two-litre petrol engine with two electric motors. This comes with ‘EV’ and ‘Charge’ settings so you can either drive around on pure electricity or keep the engine on to charge up the battery.

They then went further, and installed a “pre-damper” between this and the CVT gearbox and a “high-rigidity crankshaft and secondary balancer” in the engine, and noise-absorbing material in the top of the engine, and …

Look, there are other features I read and re-read about to try to understand them, but what you need to know is the Accord simply glides everywhere.

Push it through corners at speed, and even without engaging ‘Sport’ mode, the steering bites, the wheels hunker and it powers through completely unperturbed. Like you’d just asked it what it had for breakfast.

It’s also extremely efficient – I was easily recording the claimed fuel consumption figure of 4.3 litres per 100 km.

A bit of road noise comes through, but maybe that’s just because everything else is so quiet. And the suite of safety features are all nicely calibrated, except for the occasional yellow flash in the dash from the autonomous emergency braking system when it thinks the world is ending because a car is coming at you. Try as I might, I also couldn’t find anything that told you what the audio volume was.

But in the end, Honda has somehow made an executive sedan you get out of with a smile. That’s got to help with first impressions.

2025 Honda Accord e:HEV RS

• $64,900 drive-away
• 2-litre four-cylinder petrol engine, two electric motors, 152 kW / 335 Nm
• CVT automatic, Front-wheel drive (FWD)
• 4.3 litres per 100 km claimed fuel consumption, 91 RON
• Not yet rated for safety.

This car was provided for testing by Honda Australia. Region has no commercial arrangement with Honda Australia.