Who is the audience for this?
The Honda Element was a very special car. I never understood it until I spent time with a friend who has owned one for years. They have a cult following for good reason. You can fit full size furniture in the cargo bay, while still parking in a compact spot. With people piled in the back, you can easily carry 6 passengers at double the MPG of a full size SUV or van. The handling is tight and smooth; nothing like an SUV or truck. The clearance is equivalent to a Wrangler. And Honda reliability means these things are still on the road in perfect condition at 300k+ miles. I could go on and on, but suffice to say the Element was not "just" an unremarkable family vehicle. It absolutely nailed a utilitarian niche that no other vehicle has come close to before or since.
Except the cult following (of which I am a member) and current used car prices means I'll be driving it for the foreseeable future.
But in reality these cars were incredibly popular with senior citizens and older folks. It turns out they had amazing visibility with the boxy upright design and seniors felt safer driving them, plus they were spacious inside and easy to enter and exit. The marketing was kind of misplaced and younger folks didn't care for them at all.
Plus the Element sort of has an outsized place in American popular car culture, not unlike the Pontiac Aztek. That’s my best guess anyway. Hard to explain but it makes sense to me seeing it here.
Like public bathrooms with central drain and continuous tile from the floor and up the wall.
I've never owned an Element—I hope that if I did, I'd figure out the truth of this myth—but it's definitely a very common one.
That’s blasphemy right there.
It’s the best of a group Of vehicles designed by Boomers for millennials that ended up only being bought by Boomers, since discontinued for no good reason.
Honda’s major sin here was not updating it with modern electronics or a more efficient engine.
It is smaller than the current CR-V.
Such a shame.
The '08 had been "updated".
But they never offered it with factory installed nav, despite having a very "ahead of its times" sound system. It also had terrible gas mileage.
Sure, it was less aerodynamic than a Mac truck, but Honda could have revisited it.
Much like my dearly departed Vanagon, there's nothing new like it on the market.
It being an ex taxi bi-fuel I bought it super cheap with low mileage.
As I recall, they were designed by Boomers for younger versions of themselves, and priced for Boomers wanting to feel young again. That, of course, necessitated ads theoretically aimed at millennials