Honda Accord vs Kia Rondo

What's the difference?

Will the new Honda Accord e:HEV RS topple the SUV throne? Unlikely, but it proves sedans can still haul the family around in relative comfort and style.

The new Accord drives stupidly well and offers great ongoing ownership costs, even if it's price tag is a little steep. It's hybrid powertrain also offers fantastic efficiency and that's a big win.

If you're thinking of getting an SUV because you like to sit a little higher up and want a car with plenty of room and a big boot, but don't head off-road ever, then you may be better off in a Rondo S which drives more like a car and has much of the benefits of an SUV.

The design for the new Accord is powerful with a sexy silhouette that features a rear spoiler, black accents and sporty 18-inch alloy wheels.

The old chunky grille is long gone and at certain angles you almost get a Nissan 200 SX vibe, which is gorgeously retro and a refreshing take for Honda - which has been playing it safe for the last few years.

The interior is simply styled but looks timeless. The dashboard has clean lines and a featured honeycomb mesh that hides the air-vents. It's a feature which might not land with everyone but it adds personality.

The black upholstery looks plush and there are enough soft-touchpoints to make the cabin feel like it deserves a premium tag.

The Rondo has a mini-people mover shape with a horizontal and high roof, an upright back and a heavily raked windscreen and pointy nose. The headlights look too big for its face but that's kind of cute in a manga-cartoon way.

Take a look at the dimensions for the Rondo S - it's bigger than you might think.  At 4525mm end to end it's 45mm longer than a Kia Sportage mid-sized SUV, and 35mm shorter in height at 1610mm tall. It's 35mm narrower than the Sportage, too, at 1805mm across. 

Clearance is about the same as a regular car at 151mm but the driving position is higher – though not as high as the Sportage's.

Inside the dashboard and steering wheel are low, the windscreen is enormous and those A-pillars either side of it are long.

On the outside you can tell a Rondo S from the top spec Rondo Si by the wheels – the S has plastic hubcaps and the Si has alloys. You can spot a Rondo S from the inside by the tiny media screen and the chunky plastic steering wheel – the Si gets a bigger screen and sleeker looking wheel.

The cabin is stylish with the brushed aluminium look trim and dark materials. The CarsGuide photographer told me he liked its '80s retro look – thing is I'm pretty sure the designers weren't trying to go for an ironic retro feel.

Access to the cabin is great thanks to wide door apertures but the Accord is a low car to get in and out of with its 134mm ground clearance. Expect a couple of grunts when parked on a hill!

Both rows offer ample legroom but the front enjoys the best of the headroom. A 183cm (6.0ft) friend was lumped with the middle seat and spent the trip dreadfully hunched over and uncomfortable. Save the middle seat for kidlets.

The electric front seats offer decent comfort for a longer trip but it's disappointing that only the driver’s side gets lumbar support.  

The rear row enjoys well-padded seats and amenities, like retractable sunblinds, reading lights, two USB-C ports and directional air vents but it took a while for the back to cool down on hot days which my kid made known. Loudly. 

Storage consists of a large glove box and middle console (which can accommodate a small handbag), a sunglasses holder, four cupholders, four drink bottle holders and two map pockets. There is also a dedicated phone tray but a few extra cubbies up front would be welcomed.

The boot offers plenty of space with its 570-litre capacity, which is great for the class, and you can also open up storage options with the ski-port door, if need be. The powered boot release is a handy feature.

The touchscreen multimedia system looks nice but is a pain in the butt to use until you set some time aside to get to know it. It’s just not intuitive but the screen is responsive and it's a bonus that you get the built-in sat nav and Google apps. 

The new Accord gets wired and wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto but it took a few beats to get the wireless CarPlay to work.

The charging options are good throughout the car with four USB-C ports, two 12-volt sockets and a wireless charging pad to choose from.

The Rondo has enormous rear doors that are light and easy to swing open and when they do you have a wide and tall entrance which makes getting in and out easy. That's good news if you're not as agile or young as you used to be or if you're a parent putting kids into car seats. I find I almost double over when putting my toddler into his car seat in small cars, but the Rondo's seat height is elevated enough that there's less of a bend needed. The step to get in is low, too.

The second row is made up for three individual seats rather than a single bench seat. The legroom in all of them is excellent and even at 191cm tall I can sit behind my driving position with two finger-gap between my knees and the seatback.

Headroom is outstanding and even with my big hair I still have about 20cm of clearance.

The Rondo was already so impressively practical and roomy that it could have been terrible to drive and it still would be worth buying.

The cargo volume of the Rondo S is 536 litres, and that's 44 litres more than the boot space in the seven-seater Rondo Si which loses luggage capacity because of the foldable third row seats and 130 litres more than the Sportage's boot.

Under the boot floor is like a giant bento box of storage compartments with three equal-sized large rectangular areas big enough for handbags, shoes and laptops, a smaller shoe boxed-sized area and a tiny hidey hole big enough for my phone. Also in the boot on the right-hand side wheel are elasticised straps for – picnic blankets or whatever else you don't want flapping about in there.

There's shoe-boxed sized storage under the floor in the second row, on both sides, too.

The centre seat in the back folds flat and being hard-backed can act as a table, it also has three cup holders moulded into it. There's another two cup holders up front and giant bottle holders in all doors.

The Rondo is just as practical as many SUVs if not more so.

And here's a random Rondo fact for you – the Rondo is pretty popular with dog owners because the height of the roof means their hounds can stand up and turn around. Yup dogs love the Rondo.

The Rondo S lists for $26,990. The $40,990 Citroen C4 Picasso is the closest in price to the Rondo S, while the Mercedes-Benz B180 is $42,400 and BMW 2 Series Active Tourer starts at $49,100.

It has to be said, the Rondo S isn't a prestigious as those rivals and the standard features aren't as extravagant. Still the basics are covered with a 4.3-inch touch screen with reversing camera, rear parking sensors, six-speaker stereo, Bluetooth connectivity, CD player, cloth seats, auto headlights, tinted glass, cruise control, and air conditioning with vents in the second row.

That screen is pretty small – like business card small, and that means the image for the reversing camera is a bit hard to make out at times.

The Rondo S is still good value though at this price.

Our test vehicle has an electric continuously variable transmission and features a new self-charging hybrid powertrain that couples two electric motors with a 2.0L, four-cylinder petrol engine that combine to produce 135kW of power and 335Nm of torque.

Only being available in one powertrain may limit its audience but the combo delivers decent performance for a sedan of this size.

There's one engine in in the Rondo range – it's a 122kW/213Nm 2.0-litre four-cylinder petrol and it comes with a six-speed automatic transmission. A manual gearbox isn't available.

You may hear the engine called a GDI, don't let then name throw you – it's not a diesel. The acronym stands for Gasoline Direct Injection.

The new hybrid powertrain means lower outputs and the official combined fuel cycle figure is just 4.3L/100km! Which is only beaten by the Toyota Camry's 4.0L/100km.

The on-test figure pops out at 5.1L/100km after doing a some urban stuff but mostly open-road driving. Which is where hybrids tend to be the least efficient, so the fuel usage is excellent.

Based on the official combined (urban/extra-urban) fuel cycle and 48L fuel tank, you should see a theoretical driving range of up to 1116km, which is a little less than the Toyota Camry but still an amazing range for a family car.

That range figure drops to around 940km using our real-world average consumption number.

Kia says the Rondo's average combined fuel consumption is 7.9L/100km or 10.8L/100km if you're keeping it urban. Our test vehicle was thirstier and was driving at a rate of 10.1L/100km according to the trip computer over a week of highway and urban use, while our city commuting saw usage jump to 17.4L/100km.

Power delivery for the new Accord is pretty punchy and, in most scenarios it’s responsiveness is great. But occasionally, when you’re getting up to speed, there can be a small lag before things kick in.

The Accord handles like a dream and feels firmly planted on the road in corners. Even in high winds, the car feels stable and sure of itself. Delightful.

The cabin is quiet and engine noise is at a minimum most of the time. Around town, the Accord sounds and behaves like an EV. Only once you hit the open road do you get some road noise but it never intrudes on chatting.

It might also be one of the easiest sedans to park and it's got a lot to do with the top-notch 360-degree view camera system and direct steering.

You know what? The Rondo was already so impressively practical and roomy that it could have been terrible to drive and it still would be worth buying, but its on-road performance was pretty impressive.

Look, the brakes can be a bit bitey, acceleration on take-off is sharp and then the engine seems to run out of oomph and just get noisier at higher speeds, but those are my only real complaints, because the ride is composed and comfortable, the steering feels smooth and light, while the handling is impressive. I took the Rondo through the same test loop as all my test cars and it performed better than many in this price range.

Being lower to the ground gives the Rondo better dynamics than many SUVs, too. Corners that cause a good degree of body roll and tyre chirp in a Sportage or RAV4 saw the Rondo coast through perfectly stable and unfussed.

The A-pillars do obstruct visibility and at one set of traffic lights, the only way I knew I had a green arrow was because the bloke behind me was leaning on his horn. But there are small port-hole windows integrated into the A-pillars that help with visibility.

The Rondo has the maximum five-star ANCAP rating. There's nothing in the way of advanced safety equipment – that means no AEB, blindspot or rear cross traffic warning. But there is the expected traction and stability control, plus ABS.

In the second row you'll find three top tether anchor points and two ISOFIX points for child seats.

The Accord comes with a five-year/unlimited km warranty, and an eight-year battery warranty, which are now normal terms for the class.

You get a five-year capped priced servicing program and it costs just $199 per service, which is very competitive.

Servicing intervals could get annoying if you put a lot of kays on your car as they're set at every 12-months or 10,000km, whichever occurs first.

The Rondo is covered by Kia's seven year/unlimited kilometre warranty. There's capped price servicing for seven years, too. Servicing is recommended every 12 months or 15,000km and is capped at $299 for the first service, $375 for the second, $361 for the third, $398 for the fourth, $336 for the fifth, $470 for the sixth and $357 for the seventh.