2004 Honda Accord Ex-l Coupe 2-door on 2040-cars

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GM, Ford, Honda winners in 'Car Wars' study as industry growth continues

General Motors' plans to aggressively refresh its product lineup will pay off in the next four years with strong market share and sales, according to an influential report released Tuesday. Ford, Honda, and FCA are all poised to show similar gains as the auto industry is expected to remain healthy through the rest of the decade. The Bank of America Merrill Lynch study, called Car Wars, analyzes automakers' future product plans for the next four model years. By 2020, 88 percent of GM's sales will come from newly launched products, which puts it slightly ahead of Ford's 86-percent estimate. Honda (85 percent) and FCA (84 percent) follow. The industry average is 81 percent. Toyota checks in just below the industry average at 79 percent, with Nissan trailing at 76 percent. Car Wars' premise is: automakers that continually launch new products are in a better position to grow sales and market share, while companies that roll out lightly updated models are vulnerable to shifting consumer tastes. Though Detroit and Honda grade out well in the study, many major automakers are clumped together, which means large market-share swings are less likely in the coming years. Bank of America Merrill Lynch predicts the industry will top out with 20 million sales in 2018 and then taper off, perhaps as much as 30 percent by 2026. Not surprisingly, trucks, sport utility vehicles and crossovers will be the key battlefield in the next few years, Car Wars says. FCA will launch a critical salvo in 2018 with a new Ram 1500, followed by new generations of the Chevy Silverado and GMC Sierra in 2019, and then Ford's F-150 for 2020, according to the study. Bank of America Merrill Lynch analyst John Murphy said the GM trucks could be pulled ahead even earlier to 2018, prompting Ford to respond. "This focus on crossovers and trucks is a great thing for the industry," Murphy said. Cars Wars looks at Korean (76 percent replacement rate) and European companies more vaguely (70 percent), but argues their slower product cadence and lineups with fewer trucks puts them in weaker positions than their competitors through 2020. Related Video: This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. Featured Gallery 2016 Chevrolet Silverado View 11 Photos Image Credit: Chevrolet Earnings/Financials Chrysler Fiat Ford GM Honda Nissan Toyota study FCA

Senna's McLaren drives Honda up the wall

Honda is getting excited for its imminent return to Formula One with McLaren. So excited, in fact, that it got its new/old friends from Woking to loan it one of its old F1 cars. But not just any old F1 car...
On display at the Honda stand in Frankfurt this year is the 1988 McLaren MP4-4 in which the legendary Ayrton Senna drove to fifteen out of sixteen grands prix that season to take the championship in spectacular style.
Honda provided the engine for that car, a 1.5-liter turbo V6 with upwards of 600 horsepower to propel less than 1,200 lbs. Of course this being a static display car, it's likely been stripped of its engine, gearbox and most other internal mechanical components. But that doesn't make the sight of it any less memorable.

2016 Honda HR-V: Long-Term Introduction

From the moment we first drove Honda's new HR-V, it was clear that this car would be a hit in the now-booming small crossover segment. Through October of this year, Honda moved 33,727 examples of its new HR-V, and last month alone, the CUV outsold its platform-mate Fit nearly three-and-a-half times over. Considering its importance not only for the segment, but for Honda as a brand, we knew a longer test of the cute little HR-V was in order. Enter our latest addition to the Autoblog long-term fleet, a mid-level HR-V EX with all-wheel drive. We chose EX because it's the volume model, representing the majority of the cars out on the road. Even so, it's incredibly well-equipped with 17-inch wheels, heated seats, a seven-inch infotainment system (that lacks navigation on this model), tinted windows, a sunroof, foglamps, a standard array of tech features, Honda's Lane Watch camera system, and more. Adding all-wheel drive was a no-brainer, considering Autoblog's headquarters in snowy metro Detroit, though this meant being forced to live with the continuously variable transmission. (Front-wheel-drive HR-Vs can be had with a pleasant six-speed manual.) Our car features the light cloth interior, and we'll be interested to see how it holds up over the course of a year. All in, the Alabaster Silver Metallic car you see here stickers for $24,115. All in, the Alabaster Silver Metallic car you see here stickers for $24,115, including $900 for destination. That means the HR-V is the least-expensive car we've ever had in the long-term fleet. Every HR-V comes with one powertrain: a 1.8-liter, naturally-aspirated inline-four, good for 141 horsepower and 127 pound-feet of torque. That's adequate considering the 3,094-pound curb weight, and allows the HR-V to return EPA-estimated fuel economy ratings of 27 miles per gallon city and 32 mpg highway. Our car arrived with only 130 miles on the odometer, so we're going to let the engine fully break in before we start tracking our observed fuel economy data. That said, the HR-V has been a hot commodity in the Autoblog fleet ever since its arrival. In its first week on the job alone, the Honda handled a road trip to northern Michigan and helped one of our staffers move. (The Magic Seats and 55.9 cubic-feet of cargo space are fantastic, by the way – more on that in a future update.) "Control layout is a lot simpler than other recent Hondas.