Author Topic: What about a Honda city car for the UK?  (Read 7415 times)

robark

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What about a Honda city car for the UK?
« on: January 22, 2017, 02:25:59 PM »
Last year Honda released the new, enlarged, Jazz to the UK market. It now competes with the Focus segment for passenger accommodation and has exceeded it for some time for luggage accommodation. Very shortly, the enlarged,10G Civic, will be moving into the shoes vacated by the withdrawn Accord.
With both the Jazz and the Civic aspiring to higher segments, it seems to me that Honda should be thinking about introducing a City segment vehicle to the U.K.,to compete with likes of the VW Up, Toyota Aygo ,Hyundai i10, etc.

guest1372

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Re: What about a Honda city car for the UK?
« Reply #1 on: January 22, 2017, 04:18:18 PM »
Apart from the S-660, the only smaller JDM vehicles are the Kei cars N-Box / N-WGN /  N-One which are all too bizarre for European tastes.  The demand is probably there for a smaller (cheaper?) car but the problem is it costs about the same to produce a mid-size or small car.  I'd like the Jade or Shuttle but there is probably too much overlap with the Civic.

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RichardA

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Re: What about a Honda city car for the UK?
« Reply #2 on: January 22, 2017, 07:07:07 PM »
Selling one profitably is the challenge, most city cars platform share to spread costs (Kia Picanto/Hyundai i10, VW Up/Skoda Citigo/Seat Myvii, Toyota Aygo/Citroen C1/Peugeot 108, Renault Twingo/Smart Fortwo, Fiat 500/Panda/previous Ford Ka) and Honda have no partners to call on.

John Ratsey

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Re: What about a Honda city car for the UK?
« Reply #3 on: January 22, 2017, 08:08:22 PM »
The obvious candidate for this segment is the Honda Brio https://www.hondacarindia.com/HondaBrio/ provided the India factory can meet the quality potential purchasers expect of Honda.
2022 HR-V Elegance, previously 2020 Jazz Crosstar

robark

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Re: What about a Honda city car for the UK?
« Reply #4 on: January 22, 2017, 08:26:45 PM »
Selling one profitably is the challenge, most city cars platform share to spread costs (Kia Picanto/Hyundai i10, VW Up/Skoda Citigo/Seat Myvii, Toyota Aygo/Citroen C1/Peugeot 108, Renault Twingo/Smart Fortwo, Fiat 500/Panda/previous Ford Ka) and Honda have no partners to call on.

Good point. Lack of current partners does put Honda at a disadvantage in developing a new city car.
To help reduce costs,I don't whether Honda could consider one of their Kei car platforms as a basis and develop  a European style body. They can use the Jazz engines (including the new 1L turbo) and transmission systems.
But I am not an auto engineer.

robark

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Re: What about a Honda city car for the UK?
« Reply #5 on: January 22, 2017, 08:49:15 PM »
The obvious candidate for this segment is the Honda Brio https://www.hondacarindia.com/HondaBrio/ provided the India factory can meet the quality potential purchasers expect of Honda.

The Brio does indeed look like a good candidate to join the city car segment for Honda UK, with a few changes, perhaps. I believe the Honda HRV is built in Mexico and my Hyundai i10 (second car) is built in Turkey, without, as far as I know, any quality control issues. I should imagine an Indian built car with good factory quality control could meet Honda's European standards

John Ratsey

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Re: What about a Honda city car for the UK?
« Reply #6 on: January 22, 2017, 10:06:31 PM »
The Brio does indeed look like a good candidate to join the city car segment for Honda UK, with a few changes, perhaps. I believe the Honda HRV is built in Mexico and my Hyundai i10 (second car) is built in Turkey, without, as far as I know, any quality control issues. I should imagine an Indian built car with good factory quality control could meet Honda's European standards
Unless it's changed recently, the Hyundai i10 is made in India.

The European HR-Vs have been built in Mexico and have had more than their fair share of quality problems (I was told when I bought my HR-V (I consciously bought an ex-demo so it should have been debugged) that Honda were going to serve the European HR-V market from Japan as Mexico is struggling to meet the US HR-V sales) . These quality problems may be due to trying to ramp up production in a relatively new factory. It shouldn't be difficult for an established factory in India to do better.

Getting back on topic, why would Honda introduce a smaller vehicle to the European market? One obvious reason would be to help bring down the fleet average CO2 in order to help meet the target http://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/transport/vehicles/cars_en. That might be sufficient motivation to offset the relatively tight margins at that end of the market.
2022 HR-V Elegance, previously 2020 Jazz Crosstar

guest1372

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Re: What about a Honda city car for the UK?
« Reply #7 on: January 22, 2017, 11:09:35 PM »
Brazil's WR-V which seems to be a sturdy Jazz.

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richardfrost

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Re: What about a Honda city car for the UK?
« Reply #8 on: January 23, 2017, 01:56:01 AM »
Brazil's WR-V which seems to be a sturdy Jazz.

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That reminds me of this pointless end of life marketing attempt...

« Last Edit: January 23, 2017, 01:59:10 AM by richardfrost »

Skyrider

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Re: What about a Honda city car for the UK?
« Reply #9 on: January 23, 2017, 08:20:55 AM »
It may be pointless marketing to the more astute punters, with bumped up prices for a few bits of plastic and longer suspension springs it is easy extra profit for the maker and dealers. A bit like the Sandero and Stepway.
« Last Edit: January 23, 2017, 08:38:40 AM by Deeps »

culzean

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Re: What about a Honda city car for the UK?
« Reply #10 on: January 23, 2017, 09:25:48 AM »
Brazil's WR-V which seems to be a sturdy Jazz.

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There is probably good reason for the extra large plastic bits in places like Brazil where dirt roads are common and quite large chunks of rock get kicked up by wheels - Brazilians probably also go for the more rugged macho look (although a 'Brazilian' is in no way macho LOL).
Some people will only consider you an expert if they agree with your point of view or advice,  when you give them advice they don't like they consider you an idiot

culzean

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Re: What about a Honda city car for the UK?
« Reply #11 on: January 23, 2017, 10:06:52 AM »
Getting back on topic, why would Honda introduce a smaller vehicle to the European market? One obvious reason would be to help bring down the fleet average CO2 in order to help meet the target http://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/transport/vehicles/cars_en. That might be sufficient motivation to offset the relatively tight margins at that end of the market.

http://notrickszone.com/2013/03/02/most-of-the-rise-in-co2-likely-comes-from-natural-sources/#sthash.pGHX2cD5.dpbs

There is still no overall agreement in scientific circles that CO2 rise is due to man.  Many scientists are after a wage packet and can obtain money in grants but can only continue to get the money if their findings agree with what their paymasters want to see, anyone who went against the trend would soon be kicked off the lucrative bandwagon.  Just think of all the money governments have made from carbon taxes etc. (reminds me a bit of the window tax where the government got money from people who just wanted a bit of light in their house - a tax on sunlight, imagine that happening today in these enlightened times,  well yes I can, some things never change).
Some people will only consider you an expert if they agree with your point of view or advice,  when you give them advice they don't like they consider you an idiot

richardfrost

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Re: What about a Honda city car for the UK?
« Reply #12 on: January 23, 2017, 01:46:56 PM »
There is still no overall agreement in scientific circles that CO2 rise is due to man.  Many scientists are after a wage packet and can obtain money in grants but can only continue to get the money if their findings agree with what their paymasters want to see, anyone who went against the trend would soon be kicked off the lucrative bandwagon.  Just think of all the money governments have made from carbon taxes etc. (reminds me a bit of the window tax where the government got money from people who just wanted a bit of light in their house - a tax on sunlight, imagine that happening today in these enlightened times,  well yes I can, some things never change).

True, there is no overall consensus on this yet. I think it is only the more paranoid end of the sceptic spectrum that believe scientists are all in it for the grant money though.

http://www.iflscience.com/environment/nasa-have-been-shutting-down-climate-change-deniers-bill-nyes-facebook/

Skyrider

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Re: What about a Honda city car for the UK?
« Reply #13 on: January 23, 2017, 02:05:08 PM »

True, there is no overall consensus on this yet. I think it is only the more paranoid end of the sceptic spectrum that believe scientists are all in it for the grant money though.

http://www.iflscience.com/environment/nasa-have-been-shutting-down-climate-change-deniers-bill-nyes-facebook/

And who funds NASA? A government that needs climate change taxes!

Garyman

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Re: What about a Honda city car for the UK?
« Reply #14 on: January 23, 2017, 04:20:50 PM »
Honda use to do the Logo I think its called?

Good shout on the Brio - seen some funky modded one in Malaysia and other Asian countries  :D

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