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- Honda reportedly plans a lifted Accord hatch for Outback shoppers.
- The automaker could physique the hybrid successful Ohio starting mid-2029.
- A Crosstour instrumentality seems amended timed successful today’s crossover-focused market.
Remember the Accord Crosstour? Honda seemingly does, adjacent if you don’t, due to the fact that 11 years aft that peculiar sedan, hatchback, crossover mashup disappeared from America, the institution is reportedly preparing different Accord with a large rear hatch and SUV aspirations.
Honda is considering a exemplary internally referred to arsenic the Accord SUV, which could participate accumulation astir mid 2029 astatine the company’s Marysville, Ohio plant, Automotive News’ sources say. It would get alongside a redesigned Accord sedan, with some utilizing Honda’s next-generation hybrid powertrain.
Related: The Accord Turns 50 And Honda Hints It’s Getting Sportier For 51
Despite the SUV label, we’re not expecting different accepted SUV to compression betwixt the CR-V, Passport and Pilot. Instead, the program reportedly calls for a raised Accord hatchback with larger wheels and tires, accrued crushed clearance and a much utile cargo area, portion retaining the sedan’s long-wheelbase platform.
Smells Like A Subaru
If you’re reasoning that sounds suspiciously similar a Honda-flavored Subaru Outback, it’s purely intentional. Dealers reportedly spot Subaru arsenic the evident target. Edmunds expert Ivan Drury told the work that the Outback was consistently among the 10 astir fashionable vehicles bought by customers leaving Honda betwixt 2020 and 2025. More importantly, Honda doesn’t presently connection thing that straight matches it.
Building the caller exemplary from existing Accord bones could besides support improvement costs nether power portion giving buyers thing roomier and taller without forcing them into a accepted SUV. One Honda trader described the imaginable lawsuit arsenic idiosyncratic “ready to determination connected from a sedan but not rather acceptable to marque the afloat plunge into an SUV.”
The end-of-decade timing suggested by Automotive News fits Honda’s hybrid push. The institution plans 15 hybrid models globally by 2030, portion the Accord itself is expected to go hybrid-only by 2031.
Ahead Of Its Time, Or Just Too Ugly?
Honda has been present before, of course. The Accord Crosstour (later rebranded simply arsenic Crosstour) arrived for 2010 with a raised driving presumption and hatchback practicality. But US income peaked astatine lone 28,851 units during its archetypal year, and Honda killed the exemplary astatine the extremity of 2015, conscionable arsenic crossover fever went crazy, truthful possibly the clip is close for different shot.
More: Honda’s Accord Is Getting A Futuristic Makeover, And Maybe The Prelude’s Fake Shifter
The Crosstour was often criticized for its awkward design, and we tin beryllium definite Honda volition carnivore that successful caput erstwhile cooking up its replacement. It volition perchance gully plan cues from the caller Honda Hybrid Sedan Prototype conception it showed successful May, and possibly elements of the axed Model 0 Saloon electrical sedan and 0 SUV we should person been getting this year. But immoderate it looks like, it’s going to conflict to look uglier than an Outback successful Wilderness trim.
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