Honda UK, now the UK’s second best selling Japanese car brand, behind Toyota, is launching new ‘i-CDTi’ diesel variants of its popular CR-V compact SUV.
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Diesel model sales begin in the UK in March though ‘facelifted’ petrol versions have already reached showrooms.
Ken Keir, senior vice president of Honda Motor Europe and managing director of Honda UK, said: “The CR-V illustrates the fact that Honda vehicles are among the slowest depreciating cars in the market.
“On average the [current] petrol CR-Vs [launched in 2001] have retained 71% of their retail price after three years and we expect the new diesel models to be even better.
“There is a real shortage of used vehicles and the CR-V range has never met the used car demand – you rarely see used ones for sale”.
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By GlobalDataThe launch of the diesel engine for the CR-V coincides with minor exterior and interior styling changes for all versions. Production of petrol CR-Vs at Swindon for the US market continues – Honda US sources vehicles from both the UK and Japan.
However, with the next generation model (due around 2007), Honda will switch production of the model for North America to a domestic plant and Swindon will then supply CR-Vs solely for the European market.
Honda UK expects incremental demand for the new diesel version, especially from European markets like Spain and Italy.
The UK sales arm boosted total 2004 vehicle volume by about 11% to 91,241 units compared with 2003.
The UK-built Civic hatchback line is its volume seller, supplemented by the Japanese-made Jazz (Fit) hatchback, the Accord sedan and Tourer wagon (known as the Accord Euro and Acura TSX elsewhere), plus the very low volume Legend luxury sedan and NSX sports car.
That 91,241-unit total for 2004 was just over 1,000 more than Nissan – which, like Honda, has a plant in Britain exporting to Europe, Japan and other markets – whose new car sales fell by almost 15%.
Toyota’s 2004 UK passenger car sales were 121,000, an increase of 3%. Toyota’s UK manufacturing operations also export to Europe and Japan.
Keir attributes Honda UK’s steady sales growth to the fact that the subsidiary has always operated a ‘natural growth’ policy, never ‘forcing’ the market or ‘distress selling’ the vehicles.
He said: “The whole basis of our growth plan has come from our products being of high quality with impeccable reliability and maintaining really good residual values. There is always a demand from the British public to buy Honda vehicles. Seventy percent of our customers are retail buyers”.
Global sales of the CR-V have now topped the two million mark and annual sales exceed 250,000 units of which 40,000 are in Europe.
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Honda’s UK plant is now building diesel versions of the facelifted CR-V in place of US export petrol models |
In Britain 13,000 CR-V vehicles were sold in 2004 and this year Honda expect that figure to increase to 25,000 with the introduction of the new 2.2-litre diesel variants. However as the petrol versions have the option of an automatic transmission and the new diesel models do not, Honda thinks that 57% of CR-V sales will be petrol models. Seventy per cent of CR-V diesel sales will come from ‘conquest’ customers.
Honda said 60% of all SUV vehicles sold in the UK are diesel powered in the UK, even more diesels are sold in Europe, and just over 50%, including both petrol and diesel models, have manual transmissions.
Currently the average age of CR-V owners is 45-50 but, with the addition of the in house-designed, award-winning, Euro IV-compliant all aluminium turbodiesel engine to the range, Honda UK expects young professional buyers to be attracted to the vehicle, lowering the age group.
The automaker said younger customers tend to buy diesel vehicles as they are attracted by the fuel cost savings and the lower emissions-based taxation levels that apply in the UK. Older buyers, who traditionally do less mileage, tend to buy petrol models because of the price premium for both diesel engines and their fuel (3-5p a litre on average in the Midlands).
CR-V models are now built in seven countries and those made at the UK factory, 105,000 in 2004, have 60-65% European content.
The 2.2-litre diesel engine is currently fully assembled in Japan and shipped to the UK for fitting but, by the end of 2005 will also be assembled at Swindon factory where 3,800 people are employed. The plant produces 193,000 CR-V and Civic vehicles annually.
UK CR-V prices start at £17,200 ($US32,305) and rise to £22,300 ($41,885) for petrol versions; the new diesel models will cost from £18,600 ($34,936) to £22,800 ($42,825).
Honda’s new diesel engine, already available in the Accord line, is also due to be offered in the recently launched FR-V six-seat compact MPV from May this year in the UK and will replace the current Isuzu sourced unit in the fully redesigned Civic range in 2006.
