CEO calls redesigned Fit Honda's comeback car

Takanobu Ito at the Fit’s launch: “This is the most important model. I have high expectations for demand.”

TOKYO -- Launching the third-generation Fit last week, Honda Motor CEO Takanobu Ito made his lofty expectations clear, calling the redesigned subcompact a key player in the company's comeback plan.

"This is the most important model," he said, citing improved fuel economy, a longer body and more interior room. "I have high expectations for demand."

High, indeed: He predicted the Fit family eventually will supplant the Civic sedan as Honda's No. 1 nameplate. It's now No. 4, behind the Civic, CR-V and Accord. Globally, Ito predicted, sales of the Fit hatchback and its variants will reach 1.5 million by 2016.

He declined to give a sales target for North America. But he said the market holds the biggest growth potential for the Fit hatchback and its spinoffs, which are expected to include a crossover and sedan.

An assembly plant is being built in Mexico with annual capacity for 200,000 vehicles. It opens next spring, and the bulk of that output is expected to be Fit family vehicles for the United States. Honda sold 49,346 Fits in the United States in 2012.

Japan is the Fit's biggest market. Last year, Honda sold 209,000 in its home market.

Firsts for Honda

The redesigned Fit, which went on sale in Japan last week and should hit U.S. showrooms around mid-2014, is key to Ito's efforts to jolt the company back into growth mode on the strength of new technology, more efficient product planning and fresher design.

The redesigned Fit claims a number of Honda firsts:
•  It's the first vehicle showcasing what Honda calls Exciting H design, which is sleeker and has more creases.
• Its hybrid variant is the first using Honda's new one-motor, dual-clutch gasoline-electric drivetrain. That replaces an underpowered one-motor system that delivered what many critics called lackluster fuel economy in previous hybrids such as the Insight.
• The U.S. version will be the first Fit manufactured in North America.

Efficiency imperative

Fuel efficiency will be a big selling point.

The hybrid, which teams a 1.5-liter Atkinson cycle four-cylinder with a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission, delivers about 86 mpg under Japan's testing regime, which can't be translated directly to U.S. figures. That's a 35 percent improvement over the hybrid version of the current Fit sold in Japan.

The gasoline engines also achieve big gains thanks to Honda's new Earth Dreams engine lineup.

The 1.3-liter Atkinson cycle engine, teamed with either a continuously variable transmission or a five-speed manual, gets about 61 mpg -- roughly a 35 percent improvement. The 1.5-liter direct-injection engine, with either a CVT or six-speed stick shift, gets about 51 mpg, or an increase of about 16 percent.

The redesigned Fit is 2 inches longer than the current model, 155.7 inches, and the wheelbase was lengthened by 1.2 inches.

This allowed for an additional 3 inches between the front and rear seats and a wider cabin, with 1.4 inches of additional shoulder space in the front.


Source:
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