eBusiness Weekly
What does KBB like about the all-new 2023 Honda Accord? Just about everything.
In fact, we’re so impressed with this 11th-generation Accord that it snagged a KBB Best Buy Award right out of the box, earning the distinction of being named our Best Mid-size Car of 2023.
It’s familiar territory for the Accord. Given its proven practicality, value, comfort, refinement, and excellent resale values, Honda’s flagship sedan has won multiple KBB Best Buy Award crowns over the years.
Frequent visitors to our site also know that the Accord appears with regularity on our Best Resale Value and Lowest 5-Year Cost to Own lists.
Six trim levels, two powertrains
Honda builds on that legacy with the new 2023 Accord. It maintains the same basic formula as before but marks a significant improvement in refinement, technology, and fuel economy.
The lineup begins with the Accord LX and EX. They are powered by a turbocharged 1.5-liter 4-cylinder engine with 192 horsepower and 192 lb-ft of torque.
The other Accords — the Sport, EX-L, Sport-L, and Touring — are all hybrids. These Accord hybrid models produce 204 horsepower and a satisfying 247 lb-ft torque.
That makes them quicker yet also more fuel-efficient than the LX and EX. As such, Honda expects 50 percent of all new 2023 Accord sales to be these new hybrid models.
Get this: The most efficient 2023 Accord, the EX-L, is rated by the EPA at an outstanding 51 mpg city/44 mpg highway/48 mpg combined.
While Accords with the carryover 1.5-litre engine are reasonably fuel-efficient (29 mpg city/37 mpg highway/32 mpg combined), their EPA numbers get lost in the discussion whenever they’re compared with the stellar fuel economy of the new Accord hybrids.
Our message here: Get an Accord hybrid if you can afford it. The non-hybrid Accord LX, for the record, starts at US$27 295. The most affordable Accord hybrid, the Sport, begins at US$31 895.
Sophisticated styling
While the new 2023 Honda Accord has a familiar silhouette with a fastback roofline, the Ohio-built sedan now sports a cleaner, less overtly muscular, design.
It’s nearly 3 inches longer than the previous Accord, with trimmer body panels adding an elegant look that’s almost European.
But don’t let that confuse you; the new Honda Accord isn’t trying to be a premium European fastback sedan.
It remains a practical and efficient everyday sedan at its core, with far more interior room than you might expect.
A 6-foot-tall person can ride comfortably behind a driver of the same height. In addition, the Accord’s trunk, at 16,7 cubic feet, is the largest in its class.
The new dashboard, in borrowing a page from the Civic, features a lowish cowl and thin pillars for a good forward view, plus a stylish honeycomb vent strip running the full width of the car.
This lends a mildly futuristic flavor to the dash, which is an otherwise understated design that employs high-quality materials and top-notch switchgear.
Smooth operator
In our recent drive of a 2023 Honda Accord Touring — the top model equipped with leather upholstery, a head-up display, a 12-speaker Bose audio system, and other unexpected niceties like heated rear seats — we came away impressed.
This Honda felt remarkably quiet and refined. It has a natural steering response and a comfortable ride that thankfully doesn’t come at the expense of good agility, an Accord hallmark since the very beginning.
Even so, what impressed us most about the new Accord hybrid was this: the silky interaction between its gasoline and electric power sources.
Simply put, the Accord’s hybrid powertrain is so seamless, smooth, and quiet that it’s downright difficult to tell if the gas engine, the electric motor, or both, are propelling the car at any given time.
You simply press the accelerator and feel the Accord take off like a conventional sedan with more than ample power. As curious editors, though, we just had to call up the handy Power Flow diagram on the car’s 12.3-inch infotainment screen to see precisely what was powering the Accord at all times, and when the transitions between power sources would occur.
We also enjoyed watching how the on-board lithium-ion battery would get charged during coasting or braking, or discharged when the electric motor was driving the front wheels.
In short, this exercise, by no means necessary in everyday driving, helped underscore a key point: Honda has tremendous experience and skill with hybrids, and it shows in the new 2023 Accord.
Excellent safety suite
All 2023 Accords, hybrid or non-hybrid, are roomy 5-seat sedans that come standard with the Honda Sensing suite of driver and safety assists. On the safety front, this means a forward collision warning system with automatic emergency braking, plus 10 airbags, lane-keep assist, and a road-departure mitigation system.
As for the standard modern driver assists, they’re highlighted by adaptive cruise control and a driver-attention monitor, along with automatic collision notification.
Google is built in
As you’d expect of a brand-new Accord, this Honda benefits from a healthy dose of modern convenience technology. In addition to a digital instrument panel and a pair of illuminated front USB-C ports, all new Accords get Apple CarPlay/Android Auto (wireless in the hybrids) as standard equipment.
The Accord Touring tested by KBB builds on that with a wireless smartphone charger and two rear USB-C ports, plus Google built-in.
This suite includes Google Assistant, Google Maps, and Google Play to help you maintain constant connectivity while you’re on the go.
With Google Assistant, Accord drivers can accomplish multiple tasks solely with their voice — be it setting map destinations or switching among your podcasts.
Google Assistant, for the record, is provided by Honda with a complimentary 3-year unlimited data plan.
Although mid-size sedans have taken a back seat to SUVs in the current era, we’re happy to see Honda continue developing the Accord, which has been a top-selling car in the US over its nearly five decades in existence.
If any midsize sedan can snag back some of that market share, it’s the 2023 Honda Accord, a KBB Best Buy Award winner that builds on the model’s historic strengths while boasting outstanding fuel economy that no SUV can match. — kbb.com
