Honda confirms Toyota RAV4 Hybrid fighter for Australia

Honda will take the fight directly to Australia’s top-selling SUV and the nation’s most popular hybrid vehicle, the Toyota RAV4 Hybrid, when an all-new five-seat mid-size SUV launches in Australia in 2023.

Revealed in April as the US-market HR-V, it will be renamed for global markets including Australia, where the new model will be the second of three new SUVs to arrive between now and the end of next year.

Honda Australia is staying tight-lipped about the name, because it has been globally embargoed, but one option is ZR-V which has been trademarked here.

The all-new medium SUV will boost Honda’s SUV line-up to three, joining the smaller global edition of the HR-V that’s just about to be launched in Australia and the CR-V.

The larger CR-V will also be replaced by an all-new fifth-generation model before the end of 2023. The Japanese brand’s mid-size SUV stalwart will bring both petrol-electric hybrid and plug-in hybrid powertrains for the first time, as part of Honda Australia’s promise to electrify every new model it launches.

Also coming soon from Honda in Australia will be the new Civic e:HEV hybrid around the end of quarter three 2022 and the new Civic Type R hot hatch before the end of the year.

All this fresh metal is good news for a brand which has suffered a 40 per cent sales drop year-on-year, reflecting a swap to no-haggle ‘agency’ retailing in mid-2021.

The new, unnamed medium SUV will be offered with both petrol and petrol-electric hybrid drivetrains and, as per Honda’s agency model, will be pitched at the premium end of the segment.

More than 50 per cent of Toyota RAV4s sold in Australia are hybrids, which bodes well for Honda.

While Australia’s new HR-V is based on the same architecture as the Jazz city-car no longer sold in Australia, the medium SUV shares its underpinnings with the Civic small car.

The medium SUV will address an interior shortcoming of the new HR-V, which is limited to four seats (two front and two rear) to comply with Australian Design Rule (ADR) 34 that deals with child seat anchorages.

“That [US HR-V] will be a step up in size from this [HR-V],” explained Honda Australia Auto Chief Operating Officer, Stephen Collins.

“[It will be] five-seat and more a family type of buyer.

“And then when you complement that in the range with CR-V, the HR-V will be a vehicle that will appeal to younger particularly female buyers.

“So, we don’t think four seats is an issue and we will have plenty of very competitive options for families looking for that versatility.”

The new Honda HR-V now on sale in Australia measures up at 4335mm long, 1790mm wide and 1590mm high. It is powered by an 89kW/145Nm 1.5-litre four-cylinder engine in the Vi X ($36,700 drive-away) and a 96kW/253Nm 1.5-litre hybrid powertrain in the e:HEV L ($45,000 drive-away).

While Honda has done little more than release images of the new US-market HR-V, it is confirmed to be bigger than the Aussie version and is understood to use a 2.0-litre petrol four-cylinder engine, as per Civic. It also uses independent rear suspension, while the global HR-V has a torsion beam rear-end.

“We are definitely going to have a hybrid version and we are definitely going to have a petrol version,” said Collins.

He predicted the new medium SUV would compete with the new HR-V, which is forecast to account for 5000 sales per annum in a full year, to be the number two seller in Honda’s line-up behind the CR-V.

“If you just look purely at the segment sizes, where CR-V sits is a much bigger opportunity in terms of segment size,” Collins said.

“[Each of the three models] will have separate reasons to buy and they will appeal to different buyers in different segments.”

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