As someone who has driven a lot of camry's and accord's, The 2023 accord is the most underwhelming piece of garbage ever made by honda (although right next to it would be the new hybrid CRV, and the HRV). The last good honda's that you can buy brand new would be the 1.5 turbo civic, civic si, pilot, 1.5 turbo crv, and that is about it. Why? They are hilariously slow. Anyone who accepts anything that does 0-60 in over 7.9 seconds is just making excuses for piles of metal garbage. The fact that we have regressed in performance per MPG, performance in general, and basic features, is insane.
For example, honda has removed blind spot monitoring as a standard feature on EVERY Trim of EVERY Car except the touring's, which are usually a 15K mark up over the base trims. They have removed the mediocre 180w audio system from everything except the trim bellow touring, which it was a mediocre system as is, with pretty much the 2-3 bottom trims using a 4 speaker 90's headphone sounding pile of crap. A 30,000 MSPR civic has more features than a 30,000 MSRP accord, which makes zero sense. Their pricing structure sucks, and there is too much overlap, although I bet this is to be able to cut the bottom trim at some point (like the did with the civic) to incrase profit margins.
Not only that, the hybrid system used by honda is useless in the states. In a city, or in europe, maybe, but you would have to exclude highway driving. The electric motor helps you get up to 45-50 quite quickly, but after that the gas motor can't get you past 60 in any reasonable amount of time. The 60-80 time which is the most common passing speed, is so long that you might as well not bother passing in fear of being rear ended when you pull out into the passing lane. The base trims with the 1.5 turbo actually perform about the same in 0-60 but can actually reach past 100 at a quick-ish pace, and with a tune flash that any novice could do, would walk previous generation V6's.
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Toyota on the other hand has done it smart, using a nice 2.5L NA motor with 200hp on the base and lower trims with a standard 8 speed makes the car a class above the accord in every single way on its own, this doesn't include the mirriyad of standard features toyota piles on with every trim up. The 2.5 is peppy, not fast but not slow either, and can comfortably pass on the highway while doing almost 40 MPG. Almost no need for a hybrid! Then if you do go for the hybrid camry (since the accord is almost exclusively hybrid) the system is PARALLEL meaning you get the electric and gas motor at the same time all the time, giving you better MPG than the honda, AND more performance at that. Of course there is the V6 but its hilariously over priced and you could just buy an Avalon for less with more luxury.
In 2024 toyota will be moving the camry to a hybrid only product stack, but at least they kept the 2.5L engine AND beefed up the electric motors to push close to 250hp, putting honda in the grave. This doesn't even include the fact that you can get faster and better hybrid system on literally ANY toyota product, or opt for something greater than 1.5 liters in displacement if you are so straight you can't stand electrons under the back seat.
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I said this on a honda forum, when people were gawking at how bold honda was with their new line up. I said quote " Honda made this new accord so disposable, that I won't be surprised when they axe the car from their product line up by 2026, becaues it is horribly uncompetitive in every metric, features/price, price/performance, performance/mpg, and all of that combined. Reliability maybe its last resort, but we have seen a drastic up tick in electrical issues with every new subsequent honda product, not a deal breaker, but its worth noting. Honda developed the accord to be so bad, that when people finally get sick and tired of it and stop buying it, honda will cut it from its portfolio and blame the customer, not the engineers who let this exist. "
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At the end of the day, there really are a handfull of car options.
Toyota - the be all end all daily driver car maker, always has been worth the money.
Lexus - the over priced version of toyota
American makes - the desperate ones trying to keep up with mediocre engineering and so-so american design - could apeal to some at the right price.
German makes - Over priced for the average/median income consumer unless you get VW, which is at this point, a matter of taste.
Koreans - that can't seem to put two pieces of metal together without causing a million car recal for decades
Nissan - just no, oh how the mighty have fallen
Infinity - nissan just worse
Mazda - The wanna be luxury brand
Subaru - only for those of us with enough patagonia sweaters and the need for awd and high repair bills
Honda - The car company that went from an engine manufacturer to a design and marketing company, like apple.
Acura - The good honda but over priced
TRUCKS - cause if you need a truck you need a truck, yet 99% of people who own pickup's don't tow, haul, or use them for work.
Other EU/SEA makes that I have never heard about and are probably only relevant in their respective countries.
