Honda: Core Values Seeing it Through These Troubled Times
August 13, 2008
By Bill Visnic
TRAVERSE CITY, Michigan - Honda didn't bother with fullsize pickups and SUVs. It didn't do fleet sales. It's never seen the need for a V8 engine.
The company's corporate willpower may have exposed it to criticism and cost it some sales - particularly at the acme of the pickup and SUV craze. But those core values - what American Honda Motor Company Inc. executive vice president Richard Colliver calls its "north star" - have sustained the company during the U.S. market's sprint away from large, thirsty vehicles, and straight back to the compact cars and fuel-efficient light trucks Honda's always been producing.
At the Center for Automotive Research Management Briefing Seminars here, Colliver said, "None of us can control the difficult business conditions. But we can control the actions we take." He says the most important tool a company can have is a set of core values that doesn't change.
And for the most part, Honda's haven't.
Colliver said the 180-degree-turning U.S. market isn't "coming back" to Honda. Instead, he suggested the market finally is catching up to Honda's longstanding vision.
Colliver said Honda's thinking certainly wavered when dealers were "hounding" him for a fullsize pickup and V8 to power it (not to mention power vehicles for the company's Acura upscale division).
Now, however, Colliver said a dealer approached him months ago, saying, "Hey, I'm sure glad you never listened to me about those V8s."
Colliver said Honda's success - it's one of the very few automakers to be increasing sales in the market's heavy downturn - is due to its ongoing "bond" with its customers, known to be some of the most loyal in the business. He said the bond is "based on shared values that are timeless, things like quality and reliability, innovation and efficiency - that are at the heart of our ability to respond to the rapidly changing market."
He said Honda's currently selling every Civic compact car it can make. But Honda doesn't necessarily find that unusual - Colliver said even before fuel prices ballooned, Honda recognized the growing interest in protecting the environment. And he said the company's research showed that sustainability concerns also extended to good old-fashioned keep-up-with-the-Joneses mentality: many consumers are trading big trucks and SUVs for hybrid-electric models and compact cars because they don't want to be ridiculed by neighbors as environmental pigs.
He said next spring, Honda will introduce an all-new, hatchback that is a "dedicated" hybrid (to now, all Honda hybrids except the original Insight have been variants of existing models). He said the goal for this new, dedicated hybrid is to make Honda's hybrid technology more affordable and accessible - "to make it affordable for a new generation of car buyers."
He says Honda is targeting 100,000 annual sales for the new hybrid.
Photo by Honda
Dick Colliver introduces the 2009 Honda Fit at the New York auto show this spring.
Posted by Michelle Krebs at 8:26 AM under Companies , Technology | Comments (2) | digg this | Seed Newsvine
Kudos to Honda. However, characterizing their light trucks and SUVs as 'fuel efficient' is a bit misleading. Last I checked the Pilot and Ridgeline weren't at the top of the lists in their categories for fuel economy. Heck, even full sized vehicles like Chevy's Avalanche compare pretty well to the Ridgeline, and the full sized GM triplets (er, quads now I guess- Acadia, Enclave, Outlook, Traverse) do quite a bit better than the Pilot.
So I guess if what was meant by light trucks and SUVs was "CR-V" and "Element", then maybe the comments on track. Otherwise.. PBBBBBTTT. Honda still needs work in that area. Maybe hybrid light trucks and SUVs?
Posted by: jerrywimer | August 13, 2008 at 12:11 PM
Might want to check again, Jerry. The 2009 Pilot and the 2009 GM triplets have the same combined EPA rating.
Posted by: lemmer | August 18, 2008 at 2:59 PM