Honda

Honda Automobile (Thailand) Co., Ltd., Thailand’s second largest manufacturer and exporter of passenger cars, today exhibited its Honda New Small Concept, a compact-sized concept model and the U3-X, a new personal mobility device at the 31st Bangkok International Motor Show. Both mobility products, exhibited for the first time in Thailand, are expected to be the main attractions at Honda’s booth this year.

Honda has just unveiled a new small car concept at the 2010 Auto Expo in New Delhi. You'll never guess what they've called it, so I'll tell you: "New Small."

I really hope nobody got paid to come up with that name. But, while the name might indeed be about as imaginative as the title of this article, the car itself is much less dull. In fact, I'd say it bodes well for the chances of the Eco Car's success in Thailand when it is launched next year (2011 people).

Earlier I gave a brief look at some of the "highlights" from Toyota's floorspace at the 2009 Bangkok International Motor Show. Right across the aisle from Toyota is Honda who seemed more interested in some "Honda Pretty" competition thing, than they did their cars. Anyway that's the way of things at the Bangkok Motor Show, and to be fair Honda needed something to take the attention off the lack of new metal.

In this article we take a look at the Chevrolet Volt and try to work out if it is really worth waiting for. Will it actually give the Prius a run for its money? Is it the way forward?

What is the Volt?

The Chevrolet Volt is GM's answer to the assault of the Toyota Prius. The Prius is the top selling hybrid car in the world. When the Volt project was announced, oil prices were climbing steadily higher, pushing more and more buyers away from the SUVs that GM had been enjoying so much success with in the preceding years.

GM finally woke up to the threat posed by a combination of high oil prices and the apparent surge in popularity of affordable hybrid cars. The company reacted in true American fashion, by setting their engineers a seemingly impossibly difficult task to complete in an impossibly small time frame. The Volt was that task.

Recently the "Global Economic Melt Down", "financial crisis", or whatever you want to call it, has been taking its toll on the motor industry. While some automakers are attempting to seek government support to stay alive, all automakers are scrambling to find ways to cut costs and save money.

Unfortunately for fans of motor sport, this means less money is being directed towards motor racing. Honda's decision to withdraw from F1 set the scene. Up until then, much of the focus was on GM, Ford, and Chrysler. Honda's reason was simple: money.

Sales at this years Thai Motor Expo were actually pretty reasonable considering the current political and economic difficulties that Thailand is facing. Approximately 14,000 cars were ordered at the Expo which was attended by around 1.5 million visitors.

There are no surprises at the top of the sales table, with Toyota and Honda leading the pack with 4,193 and 2,552 bookings respectively. Business as usual really! Third place went to Isuzu with 1,760, which might seem like a big gap until you remember that they only sell trucks and truck derived SUVs.

Honda believes that there is strong demand for Thai cars on the export market, despite the recent global slump in sales that has left the US Auto industry looking very fragile.

Honda Automobiles (Thailand) Co. Ltd., has seen export orders drop of 10 percent, due mostly to a decrease in demand from Japan and Australia. But, Honda still thinks that there are plenty of buyers out there for both completely built-up (CBU) cars, as well as for kits for assembly in the world market.

Coming so soon after the launch of the much hyped Honda City, the 2009 Honda Civic facelift slipped in a week ago and there has been very little said.

Of course that could have something to do with the fact that you would be hard pushed to notice the difference between the updated 2009 Civic, and the model it has replaced.

Read on to find out what has changed.

Honda Thailand should be very satisfied with how well received the new 2009 Honda City has been. With over 4,500 units sold in the first 2 weeks on the market, this City is proving to be very popular.

Predictably, the V and SV models are the bigger sellers, with 80% of sales distributed between these higher spec models, and the S taking up the other 20%. So, some people can still do without airbags, ABS, EBD and BA.

Honda had prepared around 4,000 units in time for the launch, but don't see any difficulty in delivering the additional 500 sales on time.

Honda finally sorted out their insurance and let me have a go in the new 2009 Honda City. The test drive run was a short one, less than 5 km, but long enough to get a feel for the car.

As always, this sort of test drive report is in no way a substitute for your own test drive experience. That said, here are my thoughts having driven the City, including a comparison to its closest rival..... The Vi.... I mean the Jazz.

This is a quick report on my first experience with the all-new 2009 Honda City. I will have to wait until next week to actually drive the car, just as all other ordinary people in Thailand who are looking forward to their test drive, but I have had a chance to look at the new City up close, get behind the wheel and push, pull, wiggle, open, close, and slam, everything that could be pushed, pulled, wiggled, opened, closed or slammed.

So, I'd like to share some notable observations with you.

If you check through the news postings for the last few weeks, you'll find that more than a fair share of them are relating to the 2009 Honda City. This is partly because there is virtually nothing else interesting happening in the Thai motoring industry right now. But the fact still remains that the City is a massively-important car for Honda.

The all-new 2009 Honda City has been launched in Thailand. So far there is nothing different about the Honda Thailand website, although the Teaser Page for the city has stopped counting down.

Related : 2009 Honda City First Impressions

Honda are building up for the Thai launch of the all-new 2009 Honda City with a teaser video available through their City micro-site.

The video details a launch event between 12th and 14th September at Siam Paragon, although the official launch is still set for 10th September.

According to Honda Thailand, this will also be the world debut for the new City.

Updated : New images added.

The 2009 Honda City is one of the most talked about cars in Asia right now. With high global oil prices, the appeal of small cars is obvious.

The Honda City looks set to capture a large chunk of the small sedan market in this part of the world, and with just a couple of weeks left before the launch, there is still some mystery about the details of the car.

Let's have a look at what is known, or can be assumed about the new car, and try to fill in the blanks with some educated guesses. Hopefully we'll get close to reality.