Honda: Old Pilot Hurt Us Last Year

DETROIT – The Honda brand sold a record 1.37 million units in 2014, but perhaps it could have sold more if it weren’t for an aging model in a key segment.

“Our Pilot numbers, in particular, were not what they had been,” John Mendel, executive vice president-American Honda, tells WardsAuto in an interview here.

The Pilot midsize CUV was last new in 2008 as an ’09 model, so Honda “needs the new one now,” Mendel says.

The third-generation Pilot finally will arrive in the U.S. this year. Honda will show the vehicle at next month’s Chicago auto show and launch it in summer.

Pilot deliveries fell 14.1% to 108,857 units in 2014. The vehicle lives in WardsAuto’s Middle CUV segment, which rose 14.0% to 2.8 million last year, making it the third-biggest segment of 2014 after Middle Car and Small Car.

Honda’s own CR-V, also a Middle CUV, was the group’s leading seller, with a record 335,019 deliveries, up 10.3% from 2013.

As for the CR-V, which last year outsold Honda’s Civic compact car for the first time, Mendel sees no reason sales can’t grow more, perhaps reaching the level of the Accord, which tallied 388,374 units in 2014.

A few CR-V sales probably were left on the table last year, because certain dealers may not have had the right trim level on their lots, Mendel says. “The dealers say, ‘Oh, if I had more of those (higher-end trims), I could have sold them.’ Maybe,” he laughs.

Inventory of the CR-V was running low in late December, WardsAuto data shows. The CUV had a 27 days’ supply, down from 34 in late November, 45 days year-ago, and well off the industry-average 57 days’ supply of light trucks last month.

Meanwhile, Honda has said the new Pilot debuting in Chicago will showcase a “dramatic shift in design” and have scads of premium features.

Honda had stuck with a boxier, more SUV-like appearance for the last Pilot, but in a teaser pic released Jan. 21, the profile of the new model is more sinuous.

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