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The once-popular Honda Odyssey individuals mover received’t be making a return Down Underneath anytime quickly, regardless of the supply of right-hand drive and a hybrid drivetrain.
Honda Australia CEO Jay Joseph instructed CarExpert in Tokyo that regardless of the supply of right-hand drive for Honda’s rival for the top-selling Kia Carnival, there aren’t any present plans to reintroduce the long-running nameplate.
“For the time being no, for a lot of causes. It isn’t one thing that we’re taking a look at right this moment – there are a variety of things that I received’t go into in the mean time,” Mr Joseph stated.
“It’s doable… [but] the right-hand drive fashions are considerably restricted. So right this moment, it’s not one thing that we’re significantly contemplating.”
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“We do take note of these lineups, and we do look to see if they may fill any voids in our lineup, however for a lot of causes it’s not one thing we might do proper now,” Mr Joseph added.
Japanese manufacturing of the Odyssey ceased in 2021, additionally seeing its discontinuation in right-hand drive markets like Australia. The nameplate continued in left-hook markets like China and North America – although the latter will get its personal model which is sort of completely different to the Asian mannequin.
All of a sudden in 2023, Honda introduced the RHD Odyssey would rise as soon as once more, at the very least for Japan, with automobiles sourced from the GAC-Honda three way partnership plant in Guangzhou, China.
Japanese-market Odysseys are powered by an e:HEV hybrid system teaming a 107kW/175Nm naturally aspirated 2.0-litre four-cylinder petrol engine with a pair of electrical motors; the drive motor contributes 135kW/315Nm by itself.
System energy is rated at 135kW – like the same drivetrain fitted to Australian-delivered Civic and CR-V e:HEV fashions – whereas gas consumption is claimed at 19.9-19.6km/L, or roughly 5.0-5.1L/100km.
In its final full yr on sale in Australia, the Odyssey was the second best-selling individuals mover behind the Kia Carnival. For the 2021 calendar yr, Honda registered 1143 items versus 5862 examples of the Kia.
Nevertheless, the MPV market has been hovering since, largely off the again of elevated reputation of the Carnival, which returned 10,080 registrations alone in 2024 for 83.4 per cent share of the MPV section below $70,000.
That development seems to be set to proceed this yr, with section gross sales up 7.9 per cent yr up to now as of 30 September, with the Carnival up 5.0 per cent through the January-September interval to 8015 items.
Sadly for followers of the Odyssey, it seems Honda isn’t in search of a slice of that pie within the present panorama. Whereas Mr Joseph wouldn’t verify what these “variety of causes” impeding the Odyssey’s native re-introduction had been, it looks as if sourcing automobiles from the Chinese language manufacturing facility might current challenges.
For now, Honda does nonetheless supply a seven-seater within the type of choose variants of its CR-V mid-size SUV. Although extra of a 5+2 than a totally fledged seven seater, the CR-V is accessible in VTi X7 and L7 grades – although it seems inventory of the latter has been exhausted forward of the launch of an up to date mannequin early in 2026.
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MORE: Discover the Honda Odyssey showroom
