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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.

VW Finds CO2 'Irregularites', SEMA Recap, and More | Autoblog Minute

Volkswagen's diesel emissions scandal gets a new wrinkle, US regulators hit Takata Corporation with a substantial fine, and we head to Vegas for a look at tuner paradise at the 2015 SEMA show. Autoblog Senior Editor Greg Migliore reports on this edition of Autoblog Minute Weekly Recap. Acura Chevrolet Honda Mazda Mitsubishi Toyota Autoblog Minute Videos Original Video Acura Legend

Acura will sell its EVs exclusively online starting in 2024

Honda has big plans for the new year and electrification will play a huge part of that, the company's recently-promoted SVP of Sales, Mamadou Diallo, told reporters on Tuesday. Expect to see a lot more Honda and Acura hybrids on the road this year, ahead of a major EV push come 2024. Overall, Honda is officially aiming to move 1.2 million units in 2023, with Acura shooting for 160,000 units, a 20-25% increase over what they sold in 2022. And although the company managed to maintain a single-digit days' supply of vehicles throughout last year, it enters 2023 with a glut of cars and trucks and a 17-day supply. As such, dealers are going to be looking to move a lot of that inventory before this year's models start arriving so fingers crossed, we could potentially see some Tesla-level price cuts in the near future. "In 2023, we will see the strategies we've been talking about, including growing sales of light truck models, increasing volume of hybrid-electric models and the start of digital sales at Acura," Diallo said in a Wednesday press release. "All this leads toward our vision of 100-percent electrified sales by 2040 to fulfill our ultimately goal of zero emissions by 2050."  The ZDX and ZDX Type S will be Acura's first full-EV offerings and serve as the harbingers of the company's new, exclusively online EV sales strategy. Diallo didn't have much additional information regarding how the system would work — such as whether haggling was allowed or how individual vehicle prices would be set — but assured the assembled journalists, "as we get closer to [the ZDX debut], we certainly will be discussing this a little bit more with our dealer body and the press in general. For right now we're still finalizing all those details." Acura joins Ford, Volvo, GM and VW in shifting its electrified vehicle sales to the digital marketplace.  For its part, Honda is planning a significant increase in its hybrid vehicle production in 2023, starting with the newly-redesigned Accord and Accord Hybrid (they'll also be Honda's first with Google Built-In). The company "will continue to increase hybrid sales through core models as an important step in bridging customers to full electrified vehicles while reducing GHG emissions," the Wednesday release reads. Honda anticipates a solid half of this year's CR-V and Accord sales to be of the hybrid variety and its efforts bolstered in 2024 with the introduction of a new Civic hybrid.