A Good Car? Yes. A Gen-Y Youthmobile? Not So Much.
Written: Apr 22 '04 (Updated Dec 01 '04)
Product Rating:
Pros: Useful and versatile, refined and easygoing road manners, Honda quality, clever interior features.
Cons: Bland and unexciting to drive, only four seats, bulky dimensions, no room for personalization.
The Bottom Line: The Element is a clever "active lifestyle" cargo box, but with a mild personality and absolutely zero sport-compact appeal, Scion has it soundly beaten in the youth market.
I test-drove a Honda Element EX 5-speed at a local dealership. My test-drive lasted about half an hour and covered city streets, winding secondary roads, and the freeway.
Performance
The Element is powered by a strong, unstressed 2.4-liter four-cylinder that is more than adequate for daily driving, but doesn't deliver much in the way of excitement.
When I drove the Element around city streets at a moderate pace, its engine felt torquey and willing, hauling the Element effortlessly away from stoplights and up hills. But when I gave it full throttle on a freeway on-ramp, it felt somewhat out of breath. The Element got up to speed with adequate thrust, but didn't feel particularly enthusiastic about being revved into the upper reaches of the tach--it seemed happier with the gentle, gradual pace of around-town driving.
This is the Element's first failing as a youthmobile: To many drivers my age, Honda owes its "cool" factor to its screaming 8000rpm VTEC engines. The Element, on the other hand, develops its peak power at a very ordinary 5500rpms. Yawn.
But on the other hand, the Element's engine is remarkably smooth and refined, transmitting almost no vibration to the interior and emitting very little noise. And like most Hondas, what little engine noise does reach the cabin is generally crisp and pleasant--good stuff, indeed. But considering that this is a vehicle designed expressly for young people, the Element's powertrain is disappointingly short on sport.
Transmission/Clutch
The transmission is one of the high points in the Element. The stubby, bent-nail shift lever juts out of the dashboard, just like that in the Civic Si, and it feels nearly as crisp in operation. Its throws are short and precise, with well-defined gates and a solid "thunk" when going into gear. It's easy to use despite its unusual placement, and it adds an entertaining bit of novelty to the driving experience.
The clutch is less sporty, but still very good. It feels light and gentle, with a smooth and intuitive take-up that makes smooth shifts easy--just what you'd expect from a Honda.
Steering/Handling
The Element handles exactly like what it is--a taller, heavier Honda Civic. The Element is built on the same platform as the CR-V sport-utility, which is in turn based on the ubiquitous economy sedan. These tried-and-true underpinnings ensure that the Element is endowed with the same smooth, solid, easygoing demeanor as its smaller stablemate.
On my test drive, I was immediately surprised by how easy the Element was to drive. Despite its boxy, trucklike appearance, the Element felt agile and surprisingly refined in everyday driving. The steering was smooth, well-weighted, and very accurate--just like the Civic's--and the suspension felt impressively composed in routine around-town maneuvers, with good damping and little body lean.
But the Element also shares the Civic's lack of sporting reflexes. When I drove the Element briskly on winding roads, it tolerated my enthusiasm, but certainly didn't encourage it. The steering felt less connected at turn-in, the body leaned noticeably when I took corners at a quicker pace, and the tall driving position accentuated the lean to make it feel worse than it actually was. The tires gripped well, but didn't feel like they had that much in reserve--understeer always felt like it was just a tickle of the accelerator away.
None of this may come as a surprise to you, given the Element's decidedly non-sporting appearance, but boxiness doesn't have to rule out fun behind the wheel. Scion, for example, managed to make their even-boxier xB feel far more fun to drive. Its steering is much quicker, its suspension is firmer, and its demeanor is eager and exuberant, where the Honda's is merely competent. The Scion is no sports car, for sure, but at least it likes being tossed around--whereas the Element feels like it would really rather get back to the more sensible business of obeying the speed limit. For a youth-oriented vehicle, I expected Honda to put a little more emphasis on fun.
Ride
Here's where the Element's sensible-shoes chassis tuning pays off. The Element is remarkably refined for such a rugged-looking vehicle, and its quiet composure really impressed me on my test drive. Its ride was commendably smooth, soaking up all manner of road imperfections without disturbing the cabin. Bigger bumps and potholes were dealt with with well-damped "thunks," and while it felt a bit firm on rough roads, the suspension's overall balance between compliance and control could teach many family sedans a thing or two.
The Element's structure was also very stiff, and never reverberated over impacts, giving the car a solid, all-of-a-piece feel. And finally, noise levels were remarkably hushed. The engine was well-muted, road noise was minimal, and wind rush was surprisingly moderate for such a bluff-sided box. Nothing to complain about in this department.
Interior
The Element's interior was mostly good news, and undoubtedly one its best features. Unlike the driving experience, the Element's interior was never dull--I found its mixture of quality, funky design, and useful features highly entertaining.
The look of the dashboard is a mixture of portable-stereo cool and power-tool toughness. The slab-sided design and chunky controls are spot-on, and the dash layout is extraordinarily convenient. For example, the radio and climate controls are both way up on the top of the dash, where they're easy to use without looking away from the road. The gauges look trendy and are also very easy to read, located in front of the driver instead of the center of the dash (as in the aforementioned Scion).
The materials are typically Honda-quality, too. The dashboard is covered in a thick, waterproof-cloth-like material that looks and feels great, and all the plastics are smooth and substantial-feeling. The knobs for the radio and climate controls operate with typical Honda slickness and precision, as do the column stalks and other secondary controls. The combination of great-looking design as well as top-notch quality makes the Element's interior a great place to be.
But it wasn't perfect. The B-pillarless body and rearward-opening back doors look cool, but they also detract from solidity. When I closed the Element's front doors, they pulled shut with an unusually cheap-sounding "clang," and the rear doors shuddered visibly under their weight. Also, while there's plenty of room in the Element's front seats, and loads of space in the rear, the seat cushions in both positions felt a bit flat and unsupportive.
And why does the Element only seat four passengers? It seems extraordinarily inefficient--especially from Honda--to create a box this big that only accommodates four people. Why not install some fold-down jump seats in the rear, a la Land Rover Discovery, to make this a six-seater in a pinch?
Finally, if the Element's trucklike looks have you expecting a SUV-high driving position, you might be a bit disappointed. The Element does sit significantly taller than a normal car (with the associated disadvantages in hard cornering), but I didn't sit as tall in the saddle as I expected, even when I cranked the seat up. If anything, the seat seemed a bit too low in relation to the tall, slab-sided dashboard. Still, despite my reservations, I found the Element's trendy, high-quality interior one of its high points.
Practicality
Here's another area where the Element scores big. Despite the less-than-stellar seat comfort and perplexing four-passenger capacity, the Element would be ideal for hauling the "active lifestyle" equipment that marketers seem to think my generation has in abundance. The cargo area is cavernous, and if there's not enough space as it is, the rear seats can be folded or taken out completely to allow larger items to fit. The rearward-opening back doors could also be a boon for loading bulky items into the back seat.
There's also loads of storage space for smaller items, with numerous bins, nooks and crannies in the dashboard, console, and door panels. College-bound freshmen could probably fit most of their dorm room in this car--no U-Haul required. And there are other unexpected niceties, too, like waterproof seat fabric and a rubberized floor that's easy to wipe clean. All this stuff was probably my favorite aspect of the Element--in terms of useful features, it's got "surprise and delight" in spades.
However, the Element has one significant handicap when it comes to cargo hauling, and that is its relatively meager load capacity of 675lbs. Realistically, you could max out this car's weight-carrying capabilities with four large passengers. So if you're envisioning the Element as a frequent hauler of heavy loads, you'll be disappointed.
Reliability
Hey, it's a Honda. What do you expect? Predictably, the Element received Consumer Reports' highest rating of Much Better Than Average for reliability. No surprises there.
Overall
It's hard to criticize the Element as a useful, versatile, user-friendly box. It's eminently practical (except for that four-passenger seating), has loads of clever features, and has a surprisingly smooth and easygoing demeanor over the road. Plus, it's imbued with the same feeling of substantial quality that marks every other Honda I've driven.
So it's a good car. But is it a good youth-market car? As one of the Gen-Y college-agers that the Element strives to appeal to, my answer is no. It's not nearly sporty enough, and it has few of the qualities that have made Hondas so popular among drivers my age. The engine is uninspired, handling is competent rather than nimble, it's big and bulky, and it's (relatively) expensive. It puzzles me how Honda could be so out of touch with the youth market, considering that their Civics, Preludes, and Integras have become the aftermarket darlings of my generation. They made a similarly epic blunder when they Novocained the Civic Si for 2002. In any case, the Element probably isn't what most of my generation is looking for.
If Honda really wants a youthmobile, the answer is simple: import the Civic Type-R. With its combination of street cred and JDM-spec desirability, I imagine it would sell by the boatloads. Or if Toyota's Scions prove to be a hit, Honda could import their own pre-existing compact boxes from the Japanese market (for example, the xB-like Mobilio Spike, or the xA-like Fit... although some name changes might be in order). Or, they could start offering the parts from the Honda Factory Performance package--available on the popular Civic and Accord--a la carte, like Scion does. This way, instead of offering one costly, all-inclusive package, young buyers could customize their car to their liking--a far more appealing prospect to tuning-oriented drivers (who wants a tricked-out car that's just like everyone else's, with no room for individual preference?) Toyota has proved that they "get it" with the Scion brand, so why not Honda?
In the meantime, the Element is a fine car. But it's not likely to score with the audience Honda had in mind.
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
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