Searching for normalcy in a 2021 Honda Accord Hybrid

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The Honda Accord is a car-shaped car. It’s what cars look like. If they have to use a generic car in a shaving commercial, chances are they are going to un-badge an Accord and have our freshly shaved hero drive it. Before the CUV uprising, the midsize sedan was the default automobile, the car of choice for those who didn’t want to choose. The Accord used to be the norm but we’re living in an SUV-filled world where a CR-V is the new normal.

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Since March 2020 we have all been living in a new normal. Unless you’ve been living in Florida or Texas, it’s been over a year since we’ve gone to a concert, a movie theatre, or a bar without plexiglass barriers. The vaccines that initially had promised a return to casual life have yet to find their way to the majority of Canadian shoulders and the heads on the TV tell us that a vaccine won’t make things go back to business as usual, at least not overnight.

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Amid the turmoil I sought a constant; something that would be an anchoring and comforting presence. I wanted a mid-size sedan. A normal, front-wheel-drive, four-door, family sedan without any GT, Turbo, or Sport badges anywhere near it. I borrowed a black Accord Touring Hybrid from the nice people at Honda and set about making some mild COVID-proof road trip plans.

Except nothing is COVID-proof.

My first plan was to take the electrified Accord Hybrid to see Canada’s first electrified lighthouse on the Great Lakes. Much like the Accord Hybrid, Cape Croker Lighthouse generated its own electricity and used that power to minimize burning expensive fuel. Built in 1902, the white and red concrete tower lit the way for mariners and for the electric lighthouses that are so common today. On a crisp Friday morning I loaded myself into the Accord with a backpack full of sandwiches, trail mix, and less edible things like binoculars and cameras. I also filled up the Accord’s 48-litre tank to full. My goal was to make the 500-km round-trip journey without having to stop once in an unfamiliar place for fuel or food. Admittedly, the Accord Hybrid goes farther on a gallon of gas than I do on a ham and swiss cheese sandwich.

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The driver’s seat of the Accord is a hearth; warm and comforting, with wood tones and a calming familiarity. The Accord is an easy car to learn and after a few minutes anyone will feel at home with the needed controls. The screen dutifully casts your phone wirelessly via Apple CarPlay and wireless charging warms your phone slightly as it packs it full of electrons. Sounds of your chosen driving music play clearly and fully through the speakers and you have to turn it down quite low if you want to hear the 2.0L engine switching itself on and off as the car cycles between gas or electric power.

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The rock-hard efficiency tires emit more drone than I like but fixing that is just a tire-shop away. The available 19″ wheels look sharp and the car rides better than one would expect given the low sidewall and fuel economy tire. For extra serenity you can click the Accord into EV mode for a purely electric driving experience. It’s no low-speed gimmick either and you can drive the Accord up to 120 km/h on electric power alone if you are gentle enough.

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Cape Croker Lighthouse was built via barges and boats. The only way to access the lighthouse was by water and those that tended the light here did so in almost complete isolation. I wondered how long those keepers had to go without visiting a theatre or hugging their parents. It sat alone on the cape for some 50 years until one steel-willed lightkeeper forged a dirt road through the wilderness to connect with the road network of the Bruce Peninsula. That road now slices through the Neyaashiinigmiing 27 native reserve and as I made my way to the edge of that reserve I was met by a cheery couple who were staffing what I can only describe as a guard station. They politely but firmly told me that due to COVID, only residents of the reserve were allowed to enter. Like most things, my visit to Cape Croker was going to have to wait until after the pandemic.

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Dejected but not deterred, I pointed the Accord’s sharp headlights towards the nearby town of Lion’s Head and its eponymous harbour lighthouse. Lion’s Head Lighthouse was not an electric lighthouse and admittedly it wasn’t as good an allegory for my hybrid Honda but like everyone else since March 2020, I made the best of it.

The Accord Hybrid is an ideal car for road trips. The car automatically shuffles between gas, electric, and hybrid power so seemlessly that I kept the dashboard display turned on so I could know what it was up to. The electric trickery works and with some gentle driving I eventually recorded an average of 5.9 L/100 km on my trip. The Accord has wireless phone charging and Apple CarPlay but you can’t use both of these features simultaneously because it only has  wired Apple CarPlay. Nonetheless, the Accord was a very comfy place to sit and put on the miles.

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Lion’s Head Lighthouse was originally built in 1913. It lasted a few months before a storm demolished it and it was rebuilt the same year. The lighthouse was destroyed by fire in 1933, rebuilt and then it was demolished on purpose when the Coast Guard decided to replace it with a modern and nondescript light on a metal pole. In 1983, caring citizens raised money to build a replica of the lighthouse and it stood proudly on the original space until another storm destroyed it in January 2020.

In the COVID world, the hits keep coming. Every day seems to bring a new and even more awful headline and I am sure some of us feel like that little lighthouse just trying to survive. But things do eventually get better. In September 2020 another replica of the lighthouse was erected some six metres rearward of the original in an attempt to protect it from the waves. For the fourth time, a new lighthouse stands on the same point, guiding ships in all weather into safer waters.

And like steadfast lighthouse, the Accord remains there for those who need it. You could say that amid the CUVs on sale today, a 4-door sedan is as outdated as a wooden lighthouse. But there is charm in tradition. And as the little lighthouse and the Accord Hybrid prove, you can always make something better.