Honda loves 86-mpg Fit Hybrid in Japan, ‘may reevaluate’ for US

We recently heard Honda chief engineer Art St. Cyr talk about the excellent fuel economy that the Japan-only Fit Hybrid gets. “You may have seen the numbers,” St. Cyr told a group of journalists, “the new one-motor hybrid system gives the Fit Hybrid the highest fuel efficiency among hybrid models in Japan.” With a fuel economy rating of 36.4 kilometers per liter (86 miles per gallon) using the Japanese test cycle, Honda is (justifiably) proud that the little gas-electric hatchback with a 7-speed DCT and a high-output motor paired with a new Atkinson engine outperforms the popular Toyota hybrid line-up back home.

Here in the US, though, the most efficient Honda Fit gets just 31 mpg combined (28 in the city and 35 on the highway). Those are the EPA numbers for the 1.5-liter, 4-cylinder with the automatic five-speed transmission. Wouldn’t it be nice to get a greener Fit over here? If Honda can make a 35-percent improvement between Fit Hybrid generations (as it did with the new model). St. Cyr said that the 2015 Fit, which arrives in the US next spring, will have some of Honda’s Earth Dreams engine and transmission technology in it and St. Cyr said, “we expect to make it a performance and fuel economy leader in the sub-compact segment.” Exactly that that means is something we should learn more about during the upcoming auto show season.

What we do know is that Honda is still not planning on bringing the hybrid here. Yet. The best we could do is get St. Cyr to tell AutoblogGreen that Honda, “may reevaluate in the future” if the company sees more interest in hybrid tech in the US. How much interest is that? We don’t know, but in Japan, next-generation Fit pre-orders were 70 percent tilted in favor of the Hybrid.