Honda eyes higher sales with new CR-Vs

MANILA, Philippines - Honda Cars Philippines Inc. (HCPI) is intent on increasing  its total sales as it launched yesterday additional variants of the CR-V.

“Now that we have additional variants, we want to increase sales,” HCPI president and general manager Tatsuya Natsume told reporters at yesterday’s launch.

He declined to give a specific target but said that they would want to do better than the 250 units of CR-V sold per month with the introduction of the new CR-V variants.

The 2.0V, 2.0S and 2.4SX which were unveiled yesterday, adds to the existing CR-V roster of 2.0LX and 2.4EX.

The 2.0LX and 2.4EX, which are imported from Japan, were launched in April.

Natsume said the new variants of the CR-V to be sold here would be brought in from Thailand as production operations there have been fully restored.

The new variants of the CR-V, unlike the existing variants, are equipped with intelligent multi-information display (i-MID).

The i-MID features a five-inch LCD display that shows various information to the driver such as audio and fuel consumption.

Similar to existing variants, the additional variants of the CR-V are equipped with the Eco Assist system which consists of the ECON mode that can can control the engine, drive-by-wire, transmission and air-conditioning performance to improve the vehicle’s fuel consumption.

The new variants, like the existing variants, also have the one-pull fold-down rear seats.

Natsume said the additional variants of the CR-V are expected to give customers reasons to rethink what they know about the usual sports utility vehicle (SUV).

“The CR-V will definitely fit customers whose lifestyles are so dynamic and living a mobile life, especially now that the CR-V is available with more variants to choose from, has more features to enjoy and now comes with more affordable pricing,” he said.

The 2.0V available in manual and automatic transmission  is priced at P1.275 million and P1.325 million, respectively.

The 2.0S costs P1.390 million, while the 2.4SX is priced at P1.525 million.

HCPI’s sales reached 10,419 units in the January to October period.

HCPI is aiming to sell 16,000 units this year.