Honda cuts prices in Australia after lowest sales on record

Japanese car giant Honda has cut prices of its three top-selling SUVs – and increased the cost of its popular Civic Type R hot hatch – after recording its lowest annual sales on record.

The Honda Australia website shows the HR-V small SUV is now priced from $34,900 drive-away in Vi X petrol trim, and $43,900 drive-away for the e:HEV L hybrid – down $1800 and $3100 from their standard prices respectively.

The HR-V petrol was already available on a limited-time special for $34,900 drive-away – but it appears the offer has been made more permanent, as it enters run-out ahead of an updated model – while the hybrid’s new price is even cheaper than its previous $45,200 drive-away offer.

The most affordable version of the new CR-V family SUV launched last year, the VTi X, is now priced from $43,900 drive-away – down $600.

Meanwhile the two most affordable versions of the smaller ZR-V SUV – the VTi X and VTi L – have been reduced in price by $700, to $39,500 and $42,500 drive-away respectively.

The Civic Type R hot hatch – which recently benefited from a boost in stock, and last year outsold the other two Civic variants two to one – has been hit with a $1000 price rise, now $73,600 drive-away.

All other Honda models are unchanged.

The price cuts follow 13,734 new-vehicle sales reported by Honda in Australia last year – its lowest since industry ‘VFACTS’ records began to be kept and published in the mid-1990s, and down from 14,215 in 2022.

For decades Honda was a fixture in the Top 10 sellers locally; last year it placed 20th overall.

It followed a switch to non-negotiable fixed prices for new cars from July 2021 – as well as a shrinking of its dealer network, and a focus on better-equipped and more profitable versions of its cars – though the sales decline had been underway long before the change-over.

With its new range of models – including the ZR-V and CR-V SUVs launched last year – the Japanese car maker has set a target of 20,000 annual deliveries in Australia in 2024, a third of the record 60,529 posted in 2007.

In the first three months of 2024, Honda sales are up 18.9 per cent to 4683 deliveries – though if it continues this growth until the end of the year, its final annual tally for 2024 would be about 16,300 vehicles.

The CR-V family SUV remains its top seller with 1920 deliveries year to date, though it is down on the 2964 examples of the cheaper previous-generation model sold by this time last year.

Excluding the ZR-V (1541 sales in 2024 so far) – which was not in showrooms this time last year – only the HR-V small SUV, with 911 sales (up from 583), has reported a sales increase this year for the company.