Honda announced today that it is discontinuing the Civic Natural Gas and Civic hybrid models, with no replacements planned. This innocuous little news bite, however, previews a much larger strategy shift at Honda surrounding electrified vehicles. The company intends to offer fewer mainstream electrified cars and more specialized high-efficiency products like a new standalone plug-in hybrid model, a full battery electric vehicle, and a hydrogen-fuel-cell-powered car.
In the past decade, Honda has peddled hybrid versions of the Civic and Accord, as well as the hybrid-only Insight and CR-Z models. With the Insight having been killed last year, the Fit EV’s quiet demise, the CR-Z wasting away (and likely to be replaced by a sporty gas-only, turbocharged coupe), and now the Civic hybrid’s elimination, that leaves only the Accord hybrid and plug-in hybrid. But those are going away, too; the plug-in is being discontinued permanently, while the regular Accord hybrid goes on a single model-year hiatus while production is shifted to Japan and the sedan’s clever hybrid powertrain is improved. It will return as a 2017 model. (The natural-gas-fed Civic, on the other hand, is being euthanized in response to dwindling demand fueled by rising natural-gas prices and an insufficient refueling infrastructure.) While it might appear as though Honda is taking a cleaver to its partially electrified wares and hacking away, what it’s really doing is creating room to allow its new, standalone plug-in hybrid to shine.
The regular Accord hybrid (2014 model shown) will be back for 2017. The pluggable model, however, is straight-up dead.
During the news conference in which Honda North American executive vice president John Mendel laid out all of these hybrid plans, not one reference was made to the Toyota Prius. Nor was the Chevrolet Volt given any mention. But with so many references to the new Honda plug-in being a “standalone” or “dedicated” model, it’s rather obvious that Honda plans to create either a Prius plug-in or Volt competitor. (No doubt the company hopes it succeeds where the last Insight so dramatically failed.) It is also clear that, with gas prices the way they are today, Honda sees some logic in paring down the hybrid herd to a minimum and leaning more heavily on a halo-ish electrified car for green cred. If the plug-in were to adopt the styling of the handsome FCV fuel-cell concept shown at the top of this post, it would very nicely take care of that, but there’s no conformation what the car will look like or what tech it will pack. The Accord hybrid’s stay of execution probably has more to do with the hybrid mid-size sedan market being as crowded as ever than anything else.
Expect to see the new plug-in hybrid by 2018, with the fuel-cell vehicle (FCV) reaching the marketplace next year. The fully electric model is a bit of a mystery at this point, but look for it, too, to appear sometime in the next few years. While all of this hybrid talk is a bit dull, the electrification shuffle at Honda has performance ramifications, too. Fewer hybrids will put pressure on Honda increase overall fuel economy for its regular gas models, a problem the automaker is tackling through turbocharging starting this fall with the next-generation Civic.
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