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Honda CR-V PHEV.

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I mentioned this car a little while ago. It’s not a unicorn and it really exists. Honda is actually producing a plug-in Hybrid version of the new CR-V. And as you know, it’s not coming over here and is so far a Chinese market product only.

The PHEV model is powered by a 2.0 Liter engine and gets 45 miles of EV range in the Chinese test cycle. If sold in the US, it would be a direct competitor to the Toyota RAV-4 prime.

But I guess this is another “not so smart” move from Honda in the US. As I am sure a PHEV version of the new CR-V would be quite popular here. While Toyota sold about 400 000 units of the RAV-4 in the US last year, it seems only 18 500 of these were the Prime PHEV version. Down from over 27 000 units the previous year. The low number is probably due to current supply problems. I guess Honda could be faced with similar issues and maybe just decided to “give up” on the PHEV for the US.

Who knows…

Conversation 4 comments

  1. I think you’re right about that. Honda N.A. should in the very least be foreshadowing its intro into the US market, even if its only begins with CA, OR and WA in its first year of offer. I suspect however that the biggest determining factor is that they just can’t make enough of them – for a couple reasons. Honda is still struggling with semi conductors (we all know), but the other thing is Honda is phasing down its Sayama/Saitama plant and will be constructing a new facility focused on electrification builds. Just like they’re currently in the planning for moving the Accord from Marysville to expand their US assembly of electrified vehicles. But they can’t wait very long or they’ll miss the boat. What you showed with the RAV4 sales figs is theres an appetite for a better option than the hybrid model, without going full BEV. I hope Honda can get it going quickly without the usual hurried quality mistakes.

  4. Honda’s being very conservative on their PHEV approach here in NA. I think they are selling better in China so that’s their current focus. Honda PHEV just don’t do well, now maybe with the current market it will do better, when the PHEV Accord came out in 2015 it only accounted for .12% of all accords. If you look in 2019 against the PHEV Clarity, Insight (Civic Hybrid) and Civic they sold in the USA 12K, 24K, 326K, PHEV’s sold 3.3% of all small sedans for Honda. Now the Clarity was sorta fugly and restricted to certain states but I think Honda might be looking too far in the past and thinking it does not make sense while Toyota can’t keep a RAV4 Plug-in on any lot, even their hybrids are hard to come by.
    It sounds like Honda has high hope for hybrid sales for Accord/CRV so they might focus on that first, then if strong sales and revenue introduce PHEV again

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