Honda Accord News

First pictures of the new Accord from the USA show a car that's got a punchier front end and surprising curves and sculpting on the sides. The four-door sedan is a major departure from the boring looks of the previous car, which looked more suitable for Homer Simpson than Ralph Lauren. Honda has again readied the four-door family Accord alongside a wedgier coupe, although the two-door is not coming to Australia. The new Accord is a definite for 2013 and will continue Honda Australia's two-car policy, running alongside the smaller and more driver-friendly Accord Euro. It will get updated engines, with more efficiency promised for both the four-cylinder and V6. Details of the Accord plan are coming together, but Honda Australia is being deliberately evasive on the details - especially on prices and the model lineup - because the cars are still a fair way into the future. It is trying, unsuccessfully, to build some suspense despite the level of detail that's already available from the USA. "We will launch the Accord in Australia in mid-2013 with the same engine line-up as we currently have," confirms Honda spokesperson, Melissa Cross. "Regards images of the U.S. model, there will be some styling similarities between this car and the car we launch here. There will be no Accord coupe in Australia, this car is designed specifically for the U.S market." Although she will not reveal any timing for the next Accord Euro, she does confirm a continuation of the two-car attack. "We will be selling both the Accord and Accord Euro in Australia," Cross says. And what about the design, which is such a major departure from the Toyota Camry-style blandoid efforts of the past? "Design for the Accord is a collaboration between all the major markets that sell the vehicle. This is coordinated through and by Honda R&D at Tochigi," says Cross. She is not discussing mechanical details, but the new Accord points - on the design front - to an even more adventurous Accord Euro and a boost for efficiency and comfort. The overall dimensions have shrunk slightly but the cabin dimensions are largely unchanged. In the USA, the 2.4-litre four gets direct fuel injection and a continuously-variable transmission, the V6 has also been tweaked, and the hybrid attack will become all-wheel drive with a 2-litre four. Carsguide drove the hybrid prototype in Japan last year and it feeds conventional petrol power through the nose, with electric drive to the rear wheels.  Honda says the production plug-in will run for 23k kilometres on its batteries alone. On the safety front, the new Accord gets lane-departure warning as well as a front-collision alert system that uses stereo cameras in the windscreen similar to the Eyesight system already available from Subaru in Australia.  

Heralded by the sleekly styled coupe concept that was revealed at Detroit motor show in January, the new Accord design has been streamlined and updated, and now sits closer to the Accord Euro standard in a more premium look. Honda says the sedan will have a slightly more compact exterior with improved packaging meaning no loss of interior space. The Japanese carmaker is also talking about better engines, with the current 3.5-litre V6 revised to offer better performance and economy – helped by a deactiviation system that shuts down some cylinders when under light load – paired with a six-speed automatic transmission. For overseas markets, the base model 2.4 litre four-cylinder engine has been ditched in favour of a new  2.4-litre direct-injection one, mated to a new fuel miser continuously-variable transmission (CVT) that Honda claims will offer class-leading economy. The sedan range overseas will get a new all-wheel drive plug-in hybrid electric-petrol version that can toggle between three modes: electric, hybrid and petrol only. Honda says the plug-in will get up to 23km range in electric-only mode, relying on a 120kW motor and 6kWh lithium-ion battery with a recharge time claimed to be less than 90 minutes on domestic voltage. In hybrid mode the electric system is joined by the 2.0-litre four-cylinder engine, which takes over full duties at high speeds. New technology includes lane departure and front collision warning systems with monitoring from a windscreen-mounted camera. The sedan will arrive here early next year, with local specification and prices revealed closer to launch.  

In the absence of exciting new product, leaner and meaner sub-$30,000 pricing on the Honda Accord and price cuts to the City light car are the latest salvos fired by the Japanese car maker to turn around its sales figures. Honda's "aggressive" new Accord pricing aims to further improve the model's value for money, according to director and general manager Stephen Collins. "This new pricing on the Accord range is further evidence of Honda Australia's commitment to provide our customers with outstanding product at value for money pricing. "We are sure our customers will agree the Accord now offers one of the best-value buys in the large segment," he says.  Given the Japanese brand finished 2011 just over 25 per cent down on its 2010 tally (after being thumped by earthquakes, tsunami and nuclear reactor issues in Japan and floods in Thailand), the beancounters will be looking to get volumes back to pre-disaster levels. April's performance showed growth over April 2011 but the numbers year-to-date remain behind 2011. The 133kW/226Nm 2.4-litre four-cylinder entry-level Accord VTi has dropped $4300 to a list price of $28,190 - or $29,990 drive-away. The VTi-L with satellite navigation has been dropped $2800 from $39,990 to $37,190 and the 202kW/342Nm V6 Luxury model has been reduced by $2700 to $47,290. The Accord V6 is equipped with Variable Cylinder Management (VCM) that allows the engine to operate on either six, four or three cylinders for maximum fuel and emission efficiency. The City light car has also had its price cut - by $500 - as part of a facelift and features upgrade. Mr Collins says the $19,990 drive-away pricetag makes the City "sensational value for money." "Australians will love the look of the new-look City," he says. The City, offered in VTi and VTi-L variants, has a new grille and redesigned brake lights and bumpers, aluminium-look interior trim bits and a new rear micro antenna. The VTi-L gets a new design for the new-look 16in alloy wheels. The dash has also been refreshed - the speedometer now has blue illumination - and the City also has thicker window glass and floor carpet to reduce cabin noise, claims Honda. On the floor significantly improve cabin quietness.  The City VTi manual is priced from $18,490  (or $19,990 drive-away), add $2000 for the auto or step up to the VTi-L automatic for $22,990.  

But the Japanese brand is getting through 2012 with some better news. Honda's Thailand plant - responsible for building about 80 per cent of the cars sold here - was inundated in the 2011 flood disaster, causing severe supply problems for the brand.However the site will officially re-open at the end of March and will be sending cars our way again the following month. Honda Australia principal adviser to the board of directors Lindsay Smalley says the company will also get its UK-sourced Civic five-door nine months earlier and at a sharper price."Our intent is to reposition that car as a volume player, we'll have to do something pretty spectacular with the price and we intend to use the currency situation to do that - we're saying a mid-$20,000s motor car," he says."By the time that's in the market we expect to be selling around 3500 a month rate by mid-year," he says.The Japanese brand has also been without proper supply of its CR-V SUV since October last year but will be launching an all-new model in the last quarter of this year. "It's a full model change in 2WD and 4WD, we believe that will lift our sales rate back to around 4000 a month, if not more," he says. With the return of the wide-bodiedAccord and the new Civic four and five-door models, the Honda beancounters are aiming for 40,000 sales this year, which is similar to its 2010 tally, and a longer-term aim of returning to its 2007 sales figures around 60,000."We repositioned our pricing in June last year on the majority of our models, back to value-for-money to get volume back, just after we did that, we had a fantastic reaction in June and July, we ordered up big and then the floods hit," he says.The private sales columns for the Accord Euro and Odyssey show Honda is heading in the right direction -  in February, the Accord Euro led private sales in its medium sub-$60,000 segment for the third consecutive month, it says.The brand's long-serving Odyssey peoplemover has also started 2012 - Honda says it is leading the private sales in the sub-$60,000 peoplemover segment.The sales bump could also be coming as a result of the family-machine being re-priced to start from $37,100, a $2000 drop, with Honda also spruiking a features upgrade to the tune of more than $2500.Honda's starts to the year was nearly 30 per cent down but February was an improvement on 2011 - 18 cars up - but the year-to-date tally is 13 per cent down.Honda Australia director and sales & marketing general manager Stephen Collins, says the sales figures are a positive start to a year of rebuilding and growth."The Accord Euro has been leading private sales in its segment since late last year and continues to gain market share. "In overall sales for its segment, it ran a close second, along with the Honda Odyssey.""Honda is firmly focused on delivering what Australian customers want in their cars value

The Koreans starred, the Japanese mounted a comeback, and One Ford hit the headlines with an extended family of Focus-based newcomers that it is certain to make a big hit in Australia. But it was one car and the commitment of its company chief that made the most impact as America fought back on the opening day of the 2011 North American International Motor Show.Take off the 20-inch rims that neatly fill out the guards and the chrome-surrounded fog lights and the concept car is production ready.And the improved styling will be backed - at least in the US - by more powerful and fuel-efficient engines. The 3.5-litre V6 is retained but has been overhauled with Honda's latest technology, including cylinder deactivation, and is mated to a new six-speed automatic transmission.The base 2.4 litre four-cylinder engine has been replaced by an "Earth Dreams" 2.4-litre direct injection unit that produces 135kW/240Nm and is paired with a new continuously variable transmission to achieve what Honda says will be class-leading fuel economy.A new two-motor plug-in hybrid system is reserved for the Accord sedan. The system operates in three modes - electric, hybrid and petrol only - to maximize efficiency.In electric mode, the Accord plug-in hybrid will use a 6kWh lithium-ion battery and a 120kW electric motor to drive up to 23km in town and Honda says the recharge time will be less than an hour and a half using a 240-volt charger.In hybrid mode, the Accord is powered by a 2.0-litre four-cylinder , i-VTEC inline four-cylinder, Atkinson cycle engine, while at high speed the system will switch to petrol only mode. Drive in all modes is through the front wheels.Honda says the Accord will launch in late 2012 in the US and is expected to show the more compact sedan at the New York Motor Show. The sedan is claimed to have the same interior space with a more compact exterior to save weight and improve driving dynmics.The Accord will also be the first to be fitted with Honda's lane departure and forward crash warning systems. Both use a camera mounted behind the windscreen to alert drivers if the car is moving out of its lane or approaching a car too quickly.

He is - or was - Hirotaka Ono - a visionary who re-invented the Japanese brand and changed everything, from boosting the quality of its cars to creating the can-do attitude among senior managers that's essential for the success of any car company. Ono had a giant advantage because he was married to the daughter of company founder, Osama Suzuki.He was able to use his family connection to ramrod a range of changes which would have been impossible for anyone else, especially a 40-something revolutionary in a country which usually puts age and experience ahead of youth and enthusiasm. Even so, he still had to walk the walk on everything from design and driving enjoyment to bottom-line financial deals.The award winning Suzuki Swift is an Ono car, so too is the current Grand Vitara, as well as the Kizashi. His track record also includes the less-successful second-generation XL7, thankfully only sold in the USA, but everyone makes an occasional mistake. Ono died too early at the end of 2007, but not before he inspired the cars coming through Suzuki today and forecast the global financial crisis - as well as planning the way his company would react to the challenge."Thanks to Mr Ono we have learned what we can do. He inspired us," says Tak Hayasaki, managing director of Suzuki Australia. Hayasaki has his own challenges in trying to lift Suzuki's share of Australia's annual car sales from its current 2.4 per cent to around six per cent, but he knows he has the strongest lineup in the company's history.The Alto is too small for a lot of people, but a $12,990 driveway bottom line makes plenty of sense with six airbags, ABS and ESP, as well as alloy wheels. The Swift is getting very old but is still a good car, the Grand Vitara is a safe choice and the SX4 does a good enough job.Kizashi is the game-changer for Suzuki, the same as the first Mazda6 and Accord Euro were for Mazda and Honda, combining Euro-type driving enjoyment with Japanese quality.This week the company is adding an all-wheel drive car to the Kizashi line, the Sports, and believes it can boost its sales by 100 cars a month. That's 50 per cent of the current volume. It's a big call for a car which already goes head-to-head with Mazda6 and Euro and now faces up to the might of the Subaru Liberty, the car that convinced Australians about all-wheel drive.As he looks forward, with a new Swift before the end of the year - not   that you would pick it as all-new from pictures - Hayasaki knows where the credit goes. "I have to thankyou to Mr Ono for what he has given us. He proved that we can do it."

After leading the world on so many fronts - from quality to comfort and reliability - they have been hit badly by the global financial crisis.  Toyota and Honda and many of the others wound back dramatically at the onset of the GFC, not just on their production lines but also in their motorsport programs - F1 was the first casualty - and new-product development.We are now seeing the results in Australian showrooms, where the Corolla and Civic are now mid-pack in the small-car class and former pacesetters including the Mazda6, Honda Accord Euro and even the locally-made Camry are struggling against newer and better rivals.  They are fine for everyday transport, but not as impressive as they were just five years ago.Subaru has also cut costs and its latest styling work - particularly on the Liberty and Outback - reflects a desperate desire to win sales in the USA.  Contrast all of them against the Suzuki Kizashi, which comes from one of the few Japanese brands that held its nerve through the GFT. Suzuki has cut its production targets, and admits that extra Kizashi models are on the back-burner, but is going to do brilliantly well with the car.Toyota and Honda, in contrast, are relying on value-added deals to keep customers coming in Australia. They are recovering from the economic downturn but nowhere near as rapidly as some of their rivals  - particularly Hyundai.In Australia, many of our Japanese cars are now also actually built in Thailand. It's not a major drama, because the quality is much the same, but it shows how the battle to cut costs is influencing the Japanese makers. The Thai drive also shows that Japan Incorporated is now happy to produce bland transport modules instead of appealing cars, going for numbers first - in showrooms and on the balance sheet. It's a reasonable response to the GFC but is going to cause problems in coming years.Why? Because Australia is seeing so many classy European cars at more affordable prices - look at the Volkswagen Polo - and because Korean is coming up fast.  Hyundai is now doing a better job than Toyota at building Toyota-style cars, with adventurous styling, classy quality and great prices. It's latest, the i45 replacement for the dowdy Sonata, is really good on every front except its awful steering and lacklustre front suspension.The i45 is a Camry done better and, like the Kizashi, one of the stars of 2010. And it's not the end for Hyundai, which has all sorts of new models coming from the baby i20 to an overdue sporty car sometime in 2012.And that's whan the Japanese really could be in trouble. It's not because Hyundai has something new but because the Japanese wound their development programs back during the GFT and the results of that conservative risk management will not really be known until we see - or don't see - the work which should have been done over the past two years.Follow Paul Gover on Twitter!

Mazda was the first to move, cutting prices by $930 to $2000 in October, and now Honda has joined the push with savings of $1500 to $3000.  Cars to take a cut include the go-fast Civic Type R, Accord Euro and Odyssey.The bad news for Honda buyers is that models built in Thailand - the CR-V, Accord, Civic and Jazz - hold the price line because of a free- trade agreement.  Even so, Honda has found space to trim the sticker of the Thai-built City four-door, which now has a starting price of $19,490.The new Honda pricelist comes into effect on today.

Amazing Honda Accord chain reaction commercial using Accord car parts.

Taste is entirely subjective. But some things transcend subjectivity and become absolute.There cannot, for example, be any argument that Alfa Romeos are a blessing to the eye. Nor can there be any doubt that Saabs are the preserve of the clueless. These are givens.So it is with faux woodgrain. It’s ghastly. Vile. It always looks exactly what it is, never what it’s supposed to.A pretend tree around the dashboard doesn’t make you look like a wannabe enviro-vandal who delights in nothing so much as denuding virgin rainforest. If only it did. No, it makes you look someone who can’t afford a car with the real thing.Wood is of the essence in the glorious land yachts of Rolls-Royce, the next best thing devices of Bentley and the better models from that up and coming Indian marque, Jaguar. For a start it’s wood. It belongs.Faux wood belongs nowhere. It doesn’t confer the aspired to sense of opulence and affluence. Trimming up an interior with the fake stuff is like wearing a red bowtie with a dinner suit.I’m looking at an example right now. It’s in an ad for a used BMW 320d, a car that is – pound for pound, buck for buck – the best 3 Series. I’m a big fan. One day, the GFC and other man-made disasters notwithstanding, I’d like one.But not this one. Not even at the just north of obtainable price of this low-kilometre 2006 example. Not even as a gift.It’s not because the MY2008 has the upgraded engine, it’s mainly because a near perfect sporty diesel sedan has been vandalised with bloody hideous faux woodgrain trim.In the Bimmer’s greyly sombre, somewhat spartan cabin (which I happen to like) this stuff sticks out like a dunny in the desert. Possibly someone will find it in themselves to ignore this grave defect, though this would require all the discernment of a Kath or a Kim.Audi has applied restraint with the natural finish of the ash inserts in the Q5 – a miracle: wood that looks and feels like wood.But usually the application of dead tree is a criminal misjudgement. On that charge sheet you can include the orange-lacquered kitchen laminate that abominates the Toyota Tarago.In the first generation Euro Accord Luxury, Honda perpetrated the worst example of recent times, with a sick-making blue (yes, blue) faux woodgrain. For a mercy, they soon deleted this option.Now, how to make all carmakers follow suit?