Honda could make more
money selling an Avalon
By Zachary Filtz
Thursday, December 11,
2014
Since 1996, Toyota has been selling a somewhat-low-volume
car known as the Avalon. Sitting between the Lexus brand of cars and above the
Camry midsize car, the Avalon has been an underrated statement of comfort at a
reasonable cost. Think of it as a luxury car, but without the insurance
premium, and with no prestige emblem.
Toyota has been selling this large car since then, and
last year they redesigned it to appeal to a new breed of customers—aging baby
boomers.
Honda, meanwhile, has offered the Civic and midsize
Accord since the 1970s. In 2010, the Accord Crosstour was the first Accord to
grow into the full-size segment, but only because of its extended room from its
hatchback. Honda has offered no such competitor to the big Avalon, but
surprisingly—there are no plans to sell a big Honda here, or anywhere in North
America.
I question this practice. What is Honda giving up to not
sell as many vehicle models as Toyota does? Some of this may be my opinion and
only my opinion, but my question is this. Honda could make nearly a half
million more dollars per year if they could steal some of the Avalon’s
customers, and maybe even more. That is before developing costs and the
salaries for the more car people they would have to hire.
I think of it this way. Honda could stretch out the
Accord sedan. Not the coupe, but I am talking about just the sedan. Keep the
Honda formula intact, with high reliability, efficient engines, favored by
Consumer Reports®, and up-to-date technology.
In fact, Honda already slowly sells this idea in America
as an Acura. It is the large RLX sedan. Sort of like an answer to the
middle-luxury Mercedes E-class or a BMW 5, it was launched last year for the
Acura brand.
My idea is this: spruce up the marketing campaign for the
car, give it a bit of an edge in terms of design and ditch the heavily
carryover Accord interface-system thing, as the blue glow is obviously from a
fully-loaded Accord. Change the look of the car. It still essentially appeals
to people in their 50s and 60s—bring this down into the 40s or so. Honda could
even offer a more creative engine setup, such as turbo engines, like all the
rest of the competition now offers.
The
problem I am trying to get is the RLX does not offer a large amount of comfort
or driving personality. It is basically a big, roomier Accord sold as a
different car. If Honda could consider this selling presentation in a different
fashion, they could develop a car to sit between the Accord and the Honda-owned
Acura brand. But they choose not to do this, and before costs, they lose around
$600,000 per year at the very least for not offering such a car.
So, my message to Honda is: stop fussing about the Acura
brand, and perhaps get the marketing folks to come up with something
better—such as “only the best,” or something that implies it is a special car.
Otherwise, Avalons will continue to sell, and Acura will continue to be a treat
for used car dealers in semi-ritzy neighborhoods, because that is essentially
what they are now.
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