Building A Better Commuter With Honda
From sleek sports cars and heavy-duty pickups to off-road SUVs and opulent luxury vehicles, a visit to your local used car dealership near North Bergen is sure to turn up all sorts of alluring options. Performance, luxury, and off-road prowess might be key selling points for some drivers, but if you’re in the market for a reliable commuter vehicle that can navigate the dense traffic and hilly terrain of Hudson County, your requirements might be entirely different. A good commuter car isn’t just reliable and economical; it’s also packed with those creature features that can go a long way in making your daily drive to the office, errand run, or school pickup a little more tolerable.
These features tend to break down into three distinct categories: safety, convenience, and comfort. While safety is often a top concern for drivers—especially when talking about a family vehicle—there’s also no discounting the importance of comfort and convenience.
Comfort-enhancing features like heated, power-adjustable seats and steering wheels, remote starters, and paddle shifters can transform a run-of-the-mill interior into a home away from home. The same goes for tech-focused convenience features like infotainment screens, onboard Wi-Fi, wireless charging, and apps that enable seamless smartphone connection like Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. So, what are some of the best commuter-minded features on the market when it comes to today’s Honda vehicles? Read on as we explore some of our favorites and see how the right features can make all the difference in your daily commute.
Safety
Safety and advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) are important features in any vehicle, but this is especially true of cars, trucks, and SUVs that will be used for commuting. In a perfect world, we’d all be attentive drivers every time we sit behind the wheel, but it can be a little difficult to concentrate on your morning commute before that first cup of coffee has had a chance to kick in. Braving the Lincoln Tunnel can be difficult on the best of days and can be downright dangerous if you don’t have your head on a swivel. Luckily, today’s vehicles come packed with a full array of safety-enhancing gear designed to keep drivers safe on their way to and from their nine-to-five.
Honda Sensing: Honda’s Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), better known as Honda Sensing, is one of the industry’s most well-rounded offerings, including popular features like adaptive cruise control, collision mitigation braking system (CMBS), forward collision warning, lane keeping assist, and more. Honda Sensing has earned an eight out of ten rating from Consumer Reports for its capabilities and performance, which is an encouraging seal of approval for any ADAS. New features like traffic sign recognition can even use a small camera to keep an eye out for relevant signage, displaying an icon on the vehicle’s infotainment screen long after that speed limit warning has left your rearview mirror.
Blind Spot Information System: available as an optional add-on to the Honda Sensing package, the blind spot information system uses a series of sensors to keep tabs on that pesky blind spot. If the system detects an approaching vehicle, it will alert the driver, preventing those stomach-turning near misses that can occur when you try to change lanes a little too quickly.
Auto-Dimming High-Beam Headlights: Another optional addition to the Honda Sensing package, auto-dimming high-beam headlights kick into action whenever the vehicle is operating below 25 mph. Constantly flicking between high and low beams can be an annoying part of nighttime driving, but with auto-dimming high-beam headlights, it doesn’t have to be. The feature makes the road safer for not only the vehicle's driver but also every other driver on the road who will surely appreciate not being blinded when they round the corner.
Cross-Traffic Monitor: Grocery store parking lots can be a minefield of potential hazards, but Honda’s cross-traffic monitor (also available as a Honda Sensing add-on) is a helpful feature if you’re trying to head off accidents. Whenever the vehicle is in reverse, the cross-traffic monitor will use the rearview camera to spot any other cars or pedestrians that might try to dart behind you. These low-speed accidents may be lower stakes, but the cross-traffic monitor can have a significant impact in preventing those bumps and scratches that most drivers have come to accept as the price of doing business.
Head-Up Display: Head-up displays have steadily worked their way into new models over the last few years. While these slick displays add a fun bit of sci-fi futurism to the interior, they’re also a handy safety feature. With the ability to display speed, turn-by-turn navigation directions, and Honda Sensing alerts, the heads-up display allows drivers to focus on the road without risking distraction from the full dashboard, which can be a little overly informative at times.
Convenience
There’s a lot to be said for a good morning routine. The ability to ease into a stressful day, whether through catching up with your favorite podcast, grabbing a specialty coffee, or belting out some tunes, can’t be underestimated. Honda has you covered with a full suite of comprehensive convenience features.
Infotainment Screen: The infotainment screen has become the centerpiece of today’s in-vehicle entertainment. With the ability to display relevant driving data, navigate through connected apps, and access the vehicle’s stereo system, the infotainment screen is a one-stop shop for all a driver’s entertainment and navigation needs. Infotainment screens vary by model, ranging from seven inches in some Honda vehicles all the way up to an expansive 12.3 inches in the 2023 Honda Accord.
Google Assistant: Many newer Honda vehicles come with the built-in Google Assistant feature, which allows drivers to perform a wide range of adjustments using nothing but their voice. Do you want to lower the temperature or adjust the radio to 98.7 FM to check in on the Jets? It’s as easy as asking Google for a little help. This feature ups the convenience factor in any Honda model but also goes a long way in improving safety, thanks to the fact you won't be fiddling with knobs and buttons as you cruise down the New Jersey Turnpike.
Apple CarPlay/Android Auto: Apple CarPlay and Android Auto allow drivers to make their in-vehicle infotainment system an extension of their smartphone. From selecting tunes and sending emails to texting, placing calls, and even making reservations at some of your favorite restaurants, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto can mirror almost every function that you’d otherwise access through your phone. Again, this is as much a safety feature as it is a boon to convenience, preventing the type of distracted driving that might result in a serious accident.
HondaLink Services: Apple CarPlay and Android Auto aren’t the only smartphone-connected features available from Honda. The automaker also recently started offering a new technology known as HondaLink Services, which is accessed through a smartphone-based app. HondaLink Services gives drivers the ability to link their smartphone’s navigation system with the vehicle’s infotainment display, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Users can also use the app to remotely lock, unlock, and start their vehicle, view a vehicle health report, and receive collision and security-based alerts. Have a teen driver that you're trying to keep tabs on? With geofence alerts, you’ll get a notification every time they wander outside of a prescribed zone.
Comfort
After a long day of work, there’s nothing like kicking back and relaxing at home, but what if that relaxation could start the minute you clock out and climb into your vehicle? Honda is known for building some of the most reliable and affordable vehicles in the industry, but how do they stack up in terms of comfort?
Adjustable Seats: According to a study from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, the average driver will spend almost 300 hours a year behind the wheel. When you’re putting that sort of mileage on your seats, it’s important to make sure comfort is at the forefront, and Honda is all over it. Take the 2022 Honda CR-V, for example. The crossover comes with 10-way power adjustable seats with lumbar support, perforated leather trim, and a memory system that allows two drivers to save their preferred settings. These settings are linked to each key fob that comes with the vehicle, which means that every time you unlock the CR-V, it will automatically adjust to your specifications.
Heated and Ventilated Seats: On higher Honda trims, heated and ventilated seats enter the comfort equation. If you don’t understand the value of this feature, you must have never dealt with a cold New Jersey winter, but take it from those of us who have—it’s worth its weight in gold if you’re trying to ease the transition from a warm house to a frigid winter morning.
Heated Steering Wheel: Heated seats might keep your backside warm, but what about your hands? Several higher-end Honda trims come standard with a heated steering wheel, which is automatically activated when using the remote start feature on days when the ambient temperature is below 40º F. A heated steering wheel is also a boon to safety because it can be hard to turn the wheel, activate your turn signal or shift into gear when your hands feel like frozen blocks of ice.
Climate Controls: Every Honda car, truck, and SUV on the road has some sort of climate control system, but they’re not all created equal. Some models come with a single-zone climate control system that forces all passengers to share the same air, but many Honda models ship with a dual-zone automatic climate control feature that includes independent controls for the left and right sides of the vehicle. Again, this is nothing groundbreaking, so what makes Honda’s system so special? In a word: GPS. On higher trims like the 2023 Honda CR-V Sport Touring Hybrid, the dual-zone climate control system uses GPS to continually monitor where the vehicle is located in relation to the sun. Using this information, the system can make small adjustments to keep the temperature within the requested range by accounting for the extra solar heat.
Your daily commute can be challenging at the best of times, but with Honda on your side, it just got a little easier. The automaker has crafted some of the industry’s most well-rounded vehicles. That versatility makes Honda’s cars, trucks, and SUVs the perfect option for those seeking a reliable, comfortable, and convenient daily driver. From cutting-edge ADAS like Honda Sensing to the futuristic heads-up display, safety is never treated as an afterthought at Honda. Add in a comprehensive suite of convenience-enhancing features like HondaLink Services, Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, and the all-new Google Assistant, and you’ve got a smart, responsive car that seems revolutionary. Honda rounds out its commuter-approved checklist with a generous slate of comfort features like heated and ventilated front seats with 10-way power adjustment, which is an invaluable perk after a long day on the job. If you’re looking to improve your commute when it comes to safety, convenience, and comfort, a quick stop at Hudson Honda might be an excellent way to spend your next day off.