At first sight, there is nothing very ominous about the Honda Civic IMA. It looks just like any other Honda Civic saloon: not exactly head-turning in the looks department and, to drive, definitely down at the "safe and steady" end of the sensible/exciting continuum.
Yet ominous it is. The central-locking system is so near silent that you find yourself blipping the key fob several times to make sure it actually worked, but really the car should issue a thunderous percussion like the crack of doom opening every time you unlock it. Because this "hybrid technology", semi-electric car is the future of motoring.
Forget the sinful pleasures of the past (speed, power, glamour, thrills, and more speed), driving from now on will be a deeply virtuous, skinny-decaff experience (think instead: low emissions, low fuel consumption, social and environmental responsibility - and no more speed). Oh, brave new world that has such vehicles in it.
Which means that what might be thought of as the golden age of driving is really gone. One day, not far off, there will be museums where you can view animatronic human figures wearing string-backed gloves and simulating wind-in-the-hair driving in wildly improbable, roofless conveyances called "sports cars" or small families cocooned in vast, military-type, four-wheel-drive vehicles that were used to make short journeys in the suburbs in the early 21st century.
In reality, of course, whatever "golden age" of motoring there ever was went a long time ago. The inexorable logic of expanding car ownership and use has gradually run up against the limits of road-building and the huge hidden subsidy to the auto industry which that represents. The misery of congestion, with all its attendant ills of waste, pollution and urban blight, has overtaken us.
So the writing is now on the wall for drivers - it spells restraint and regulation: carbon taxes, speed cameras and lower speed limits, toll roads and congestion charges are already with us.
Honda's first attempt at marketing a low-emissions vehicle, the futuristic-lite Insight, cost it dear - every one was sold at a loss. The Insight also had limited practicality: space for passengers and luggage was severely restricted by the need for the large batteries required for electric propulsion.
More promising was Toyota's Prius, which pioneered, in an afford able package, the hybrid technology which the Honda Civic IMA also uses. IMA, by the way, stands for integrated motor assist. Perhaps not a phrase destined to light one's fire, but what it indicates is that this is still a car with a petrol engine, albeit a small and frugal one, but there is also an electric motor to help push the car along. The system is designed so that the engine and the car's own momentum then recharge thebatteries during deceleration or braking. Because the electric motor is only ever helping, not providing full drive power, the batteries don't need to be as large - so there actually is a boot.
The Civic's "compromise solution" manages to produce a figure of 39mpg for noodling around town - which is about double what my Volvo estate will do. Reasonably impressive, even if it does as much for one's image as being seen at the wheel of a golf buggy (and feels about as sexy to drive, too).
Such considerations are outside the remit of the Civic IMA. Its vision is a more dourly utilitarian business - as if Honda had sacked all its designers and hired transport policy wonks to do their jobs. Sadly, the latter have logic on their side: ultimately, how can I justify my large, comfortable Swedish tank capable of twice the legal speed limit?
Thus the libertarian wing of the driving lobby is stuffed because it is stuck with defending the indefensible. Take, for instance, the moral justification for the right to break speed limits. Exactly; there isn't one.
The only option, therefore, is Civic virtue.
