2ND PLACE: Honda Accord
The ultimate pure family sedan

If you're searching purely for family-sedan virtues -- room, comfort, efficiency -- stop reading right now. The new Honda Accord is your car. So why only a 2nd-place finish? You'll understand once you read our winner's review. For now, let's turn to what makes the Accord so special.

For 1 thing, this is a conspicuously spacious sedan, with a truly palatial back seat and unparalleled airiness all around. "Very roomy," writes Martinez. "Most of the materials have an Acura-quality feel; well above the cheap plastics in the Chevy and the Ford." The seats are splendid, with a richness and plushness rare for this class. Climb aboard, and right away you know you're riding in something special.

The powertrain continues that sensation. The 2.4-liter 4 and CVT deliver tied-for-best acceleration, fine observed fuel efficiency (we recorded 25.8 mpg), and smooth, refined manners. "Nice linear powerband without any dead spots," writes Febbo. "Best CVT on the market," adds Evans. "You can only tell it's a CVT when it hangs at an rpm for a few seconds. Feels like a regular automatic and makes the Accord feel quick."

Ride quality is top-notch, though communication with the road is minimal. Still, such a relaxed demeanor is probably what many buyers want. Though not the quietest car in our test, this is easily the quietest Accord ever -- a huge step forward for Honda.

The new dual touch screen's center stack borders on overly complex ("Just give me my buttons back," writes Evans). And some of the pieces look chintzy. Febbo: "The smaller touch screen and shifter have a rainbow-glitter black that looks like it was stolen from a bass boat." Those few bits look out of place in an otherwise premium cabin.

The Accord also offers an optional right-side blind-spot detection system that, when you click the right-turn signal, beams a blind-spot view from a right-mirror camera to the center display. It drew mixed reviews. Evans: "I don't like losing my nav screen when it comes on at a stop sign and I don't need it." Seabaugh: "I found the monitor distracting at 1st, but I grew to love it. The view is crisp and clear, a welcome feature."

Overall, everything most family-sedan shoppers will want is right here: a beautiful and cavernous cabin, a generous trunk, excellent fuel efficiency, an abundance of creature comforts, a quiet and plush ride, and a superb, highly refined powertrain. "So why would you rank this masterpiece 2nd?" you ask. Febbo sums up the Accord's 1 shortcoming well: "You will never have any fun in it." As we noted in our introduction, to us the driving experience matters. And that's just what our number-1 best-seller delivers.

The average driver won't care much about this level of detail, of course, and the Accord is an average driver's car. The plug-in hybrid version is predictably the heaviest of all Accords, but it still performs admirably in city and highway driving. Journeying for a few hours through the hills outside of Santa Barbara, the PHEV had enough pep to entertain us powering out of the curves, even as we kept a curious eye on the battery SOC, just because that's what interests us. The electric motor provides reliable punch, especially in passing situations, and the electronic power steering feels slightly disconnected, but buyers won't mind much since it helps with fuel economy. It's the little things like this that will push the Accord PHEV to an expected 100 MPGe or more. We'll probably find out the exact number at the Los Angeles Auto Show in November. All we can go on right now are the provisional MPGe charts that Honda showed, which have the Accord beating the Chevrolet Volt and the Toyota Prius Plug-in in the MPGe category while the gas-only MPG was shown to be somewhere between the Volt (at 37 combined) and the Plug-in Prius (at 50).

As I count them, the new Accord had three priorities, all achieved: to regain competitiveness in fuel economy and powertrain sophistication; to re-establish the brand’s advantage in refinement and noise abatement; and to correct—even overcorrect, if possible—the impression left by recent Hondas that management cheaped out on materials.

This is a resoundingly more solid and satisfying car than before, an impression of substance that extends from the door handles to the seat frames. Wind noise at 70 mph is just about nil, for instance. The cabin materials of our full-dresser V6—with fine-grain leather seats, door gussets and steering wheel, as well as lovely gloss-black resins and alloy trim—step way up from last year’s car.

Look, people who shop for family sedans are Vulcans, driven by logic, denying the temptations of emotion. They constitute a self-selected audience of the deeply reasonable and intensely practical. The new Accord will resonate with them. I predict it will live long and prosper.

Honda’s six-speed automatic transmission finally migrates from the Odyssey and various Acuras to V-6 Accords for 2013, replacing the old five-speed, and now includes a Sport mode that holds gears longer and delivers responsive downshifts. (The V-6/six-speed-manual combo remains exclusive to the coupe.) With less weight to haul around—3552 pounds versus 3607 for the last V-6 sedan we tested—our Touring example sprinted to 60 mph in 5.6 seconds and tripped the quarter-mile lights in 14.1 at 101 mph. Those figures put it solidly ahead of all of its competitors and into sports-sedan territory; the Accord ties our long-term, six-speed-manual BMW 328i to 60 and trumps that car in the quarter by 0.2 second and 1 mph.

Power in the Accord Sport comes from a 189-hp version of Honda’s new, direct-injected 2.4-liter 4-cylinder. (The LX, EX, and EX-L have just 185 horses; to get six cylinders, step up to the EX-L V-6 or Touring, please.) All 181 lb-ft of torque—20 more than the previous-gen EX’s four-cylinder engine—appear by 3900 rpm, which makes it possible to inject some thrills into the daily commute without winding each gear to the 6800-rpm redline. Of course if you wish to play, the powertrain is ready and willing, as evidenced by our notes from the test track: “Plenty of low-end torque, so you’ll want to launch around 2500 rpm and spin the tires to redline. Very easy to approach the rev limiter and then shift at just the right time.” The 6.6-second scoot to 60 is mighty impressive—it’s 1.3 seconds quicker than the last-gen four-cylinder/manual model—and the car covered the quarter in 15.3. Those in the mood to save fuel rather than time can select Eco Assist mode via an Econ button to the left of the steering wheel; it alters the operating characteristics of the climate control and remaps throttle response in the name of efficiency.

While the all-new Accord has a lot more horsepower, the cabin was extremely quiet during the road test. “Normal conversation volume measures in at 65 decibels,” says Kelly. “The new Accord measures in at an exceptional 56 decibels. It was amazing to see the amount of soundproofing that Honda put into the vehicle.” Under the hood of the 2013 Accord, you’ll find a thick soundproofing mat, which helps keeps most engine noise away from the cabin. However, Kelly says that the Accord also features additional rubber gaskets around the edges, which provides even more soundproofing.