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Sony Honda EV venture's plan for online sales has dealers squirming

TOKYO/DETROIT — A new joint venture formed by Japan's Sony Group Corp and Honda Motor plans to introduce a premium electric vehicle later this decade, and the automaker's U.S. dealers are anxious to be part of the sales process. Sony Honda Mobility said on Thursday it was aiming to deliver the first of the unnamed EV by 2026, starting in the United States, and will sell them online. The success of Tesla at selling EVs without franchised dealers is putting pressure on established automakers to overhaul their retail networks. That leaves dealers across most brands concerned about their place in the changing world and whether profits will be squeezed. The online aspect of the Sony Honda plan, as well as the lack of details around how the vehicle will be sold and serviced, has raised questions with the Honda and Acura brand dealers. Many nonetheless expect Honda to work through the existing retail network. "These issues are certainly a concern," said Brian Benstock, general manager and vice president of Paragon Honda and Paragon Acura in Queens, New York. "The best path forward is with the dealers." "We have a role (automakers) can't replicate," said Benstock, who also is on the Acura national dealer advisory board and has spoken with Honda officials about the new vehicle. "There's no way that Honda wants to hurt their existing dealer body." Some dealers questioned why Honda would even consider trying to work outside the current U.S. sales network given its national reach. Honda has about 1,100 Honda dealers and 270 Acura dealers. A Honda spokesperson referred questions about the joint venture to the new company. Sony Honda spokesperson Mai Nagadome said there are still a lot of details to finalize, but selling through the dealers has not been ruled out and customers would feel uneasy without some kind of after-sales service process. "The cost of continuing to develop (internal combustion engine) products along with EVs and autonomous tech and software for the next generation vehicles is proving to be quite the challenge," said Peter Hennessy, dealer principal of Atlanta-based Hennessy Automobile Companies, which includes a Honda store. "I get teaming up with Sony, but it should be done in conjunction with the dealer network, not outside it," he added.

Honda celebrates the life of Ayrton Senna the best way it knows how

Honda is returning to Formula One in 2015 with McLaren, and when that engine maker and that F1 constructor are mentioned together, two other words are never far behind: Ayrton Senna. There are engine suppliers, constructors and drivers that have bigger numbers, but those three form a triumvirate that came close to defining F1 in the eighties.
Honda Japan has produced a commercial called Sound of Honda that celebrates Senna at a race that turned out to be one of the most momentous of his career for good and bad reasons: the 1989 grand prix at Suzuka where he won, then was stripped of, the driver's championship.
The commercial has a terrifically simple premise - there's no CG, no old footage of Senna, no one says a word, it's just sound. And it's pretty damn good. Check it out below.

Next-gen Honda Accord PHEV may have 39-mile EV range [UPDATE]

UPDATE: Disregard what The Asahi Shimbun said on this. The paper apparently conflated the upcoming Clarity-based PHEV and the non-plug Accord Hybrid and has since updated its article. We got an email from Honda clarifying the situation: The refreshed Accord Hybrid, slated to launch in the middle of this year, will not have a plug-in variant. Honda will bring a new, dedicated plug-in hybrid to market by 2018 that leverages the same platform that underpins the upcoming Clarity Fuel Cell. This new PHEV will feature more than triple the 13-mile electric range of the last generation Accord Plug-in Hybrid. We apologize for the error. Honda's next-generation Accord Plug-in Hybrid could triple the previous model's electric driving range when the new one debuts in the US in 2018. To achieve such a significant improvement, the company would equip the PHEV with a higher capacity battery of the same physical size and more efficient electric motors, according to the The Asahi Shimbun. The next Accord PHEV could drive the equivalent of 68 miles in EV mode, the newspaper claims. However, we believe this figure comes from the Japanese test on electric models, which produces higher figures than the US evaluation. Tripling the 2014 Accord Plug-in's EPA-estimated 13-mile range suggests a number closer to 39 miles when the new generation reaches this country. A figure around 39 miles would still make the 2018 Accord a contender among the current PHEV sedans. For example, the EPA rates the Hyundai Sonata Plug-in at a 27-mile range and estimates the Ford Fusion Energi at 20 miles. The latest Chevrolet Volt, which would likely be smaller than the Honda, wins out with 53 miles of driving distance, though. Honda plans a new pure EV and PHEV in its US lineup by 2018, and the plug-in shares a chassis with the upcoming FCEV fuel cell sedan. The next-gen Accord would give the company another flavor of PHEV to offer customers, too. American Honda Motor Executive Vice President John Mendel told Autoblog last year the company would update the standard Accord Hybrid in 2016 and introduce the next PHEV variant here in 2018. Related Video: