Honda Pilot dazzled a dazzling U.S. auto market in May with a 17-percent sales increase over a year earlier, extending an early-2015 streak that saw Pilot sales surge year-to-date by nearly 47 percent. And that was the old model!
When the substantially overhauled new, 2016 Honda Pilot goes on sale this month, expect it to do extremely well in the U.S. market. It is appearing at a time that is highly auspicious for four main reasons:
Heavy contenting:
At prices beginning at $30,875 when Pilot hits Honda dealerships on June 18, the line will include Honda’s priciest U.S. vehicle even though the price of the lowest trim level rises only slightly. The fully loaded Elite trim level of the third-generation Pilot will carry a sticker price of $47,300, including shipping. With a forward-leaning package of amenities including a panoramic glass roof, LED headlights, and a heated steering wheel, Pilot Elite will outstrip the price of a loaded 2015 Honda Odyssey minivan by $1,820, according to Automotive News.
And that’s a good thing, because Honda executives are playing masterfully into Americans’ appetite for heavily contented versions of just about every vehicle these days — a remarkable and remarkably consistent pattern as U.S. car-sales growth has continued even against a highly erratic backdrop of overall economic growth. In fact, transaction prices for the industry grew by 4.3 percent in May over a year ago, Kelley Blue Book estimated, easily outpacing inflation. Low interest rates and increasingly attractive deals by car makers have been contributors to the trend.
Associates at Honda Manufacturing of Alabama, LLC in Lincoln, AlQuiescent gasoline prices: Clearly the second-generation Pilot lately has joined other mid-size and large SUVs as a beneficiary of lower and relatively steady U.S. gasoline prices, after a sales drop for the nameplate in 2014. So there’s reason to think that the next-generation Pilot will gain even further.
The new model is about 300 pounds lighter than the previous version and includes a fuel-saving cylinder-deactivation feature as well as a stop-start engine, a new standard six-speed automatic transmission, and an available nine-speed transmission. All told, Pilot will improve its fuel economy by as much as two miles a gallon combined, which Honda says makes it the most fuel-efficient midsize SUV available.
Meanwhile, it’s expected that U.S. gasoline prices will continue to cooperate for a while. Gas prices this summer ought to be significantly lower than they were a year ago, according to new Purdue University research. And some analysts believe prices will ease to around $2 this fall after leveling off for the summer at around $2.50 a gallon. This in spite of how U.S. producers have been quickly easing production lately in the wake of the precipitous drop in oil prices that also allowed gasoline prices to fall.
Brand new vibe:
Honda has lost about a half-point of U.S. market share this year so far, down to about 9.8 percent, according to Automotive News figures. But led by Pilot, times are about to get better for the brand that has tended to get a bit lost lately amid the booming American new-car market and a plethora of exciting and interesting product launches by competitors.
In fact, Honda should pick up a half-point of market share over the next four model years, according to the latest version of the “Car Wars” report by Merrill Lynch, which annually assesses prospects for each auto maker in detail.
The key: Over that period, Honda plans to redesign nearly all of its other nameplates, exceeding the plans of any other major auto brand in the U.S. market. And it’s just as true now as ever: New sheet metal is what brings consumers to showrooms and boosts sales.
Sweet home Alabama:
It doesn’t hurt that the all-new 2016 Pilot is being built in Alabama, which lately has seen its automotive output grow by more on a percentage basis than any other state. It’s being produced alongside the Odyssey minivan, and Honda will begin producing an all-new Ridgeline pickup truck in Alabama early next year.
The fact that Pilot will be a new anchor of one of Honda’s two major U.S. production bases — the other, older one is in Ohio — already has helped the company fashion a vehicle that appeals to American tastes and is likely to continue to do so. As Marc Ernst, chief engineer for Honda R&D Americas, put it in a release, “Our U.S.-based development team lives with the [Pilot] midsize family SUV everyday and we have applied our deep understanding into development.”
For these reasons and more, American Honda dealers already have made puts on all of the new Pilots that will be available this year. Honda executives said that output of Pilot will hit 120,000 a year and more when the plant is ramped up to full capacity. That means the company expects Pilot to join its other high-volume models — the Civic and Accord sedans, CR-V crossover and Odyssey minivan — in forming a fearsome fivesome of nameplates at the brand’s core.
“We’re confident that the Pilot will ultimately become a new sales pillar in our lineup,” Jeff Conrad, Honda Division general manager, told journalists recently.
