Honda August Sales Figues: 694 CR-Zs Sold in First Month

[TCroly]

Today, Honda released their sales numbers for August 2010. Overall sales were 33% lower than last year, but last year's sales were driven by the cash for clunkers program.

The CRZ went on sale on Agust 24 and in the 8 selling days they sold 694 CRZs.

It is not clear how to interpret this result. Compared to the 10,000 orders that were placed in Japan during the first week of introduction back in March this is pretty weak.

Compared to the more than 2500 cars presently sitting on dealer lots, this would also seem a pretty poor result.

However, 694 cars sold in 8 days is a sales rate of more than 30,000 cars per year, but I don't think anyone expects the first week's sales rate to be maintained throughout the whole year.



My gut reaction to this number is that the CRZ is not being recieved well by the market. But I think we need a full months worth of sales before any conclusions can be drawn.

[Bulletproof ECO]

I wouldn't jump the gun just yet -- to be quite honest most people I talk to that aren't "car people" don't even know what the CR-Z is! I keep having to tell them, NO it's not the CR-V..."

Given some time, and once the stateside guys get their hands on them -- I'm confident we will see sales rise over the next few months.

- Jason

[LeeMoon]

I figure it's a whole new vehicle and category that hasn't been marketed in the states yet. Once we start seeing advertising and real consumer reviews from early adopters, I suspect sales will rise quite nicely.

[JnC]

FWIW, John McElroy of Autoline said in a recent podcast that Honda's internal CR-Z targets are to boost US sales to nearly 50,000 units a year by 2015.

To put that number in perspective, that's about in line with the average annual US sales of the original CRX, from 1984 through 1987.

[TCroly]

Originally Posted by JnC

FWIW, John McElroy of Autoline said in a recent podcast that Honda's internal CR-Z targets are to boost US sales to nearly 50,000 units a year by 2015.

To put that number in perspective, that's about in line with the average annual US sales of the original CRX, from 1984 through 1987.

I can understand why America Honda would like to achieve sales of 50,000 or more per year but I would be willing to wager everything I own that they will never sell any more than 25,000 CRZs in any single year in the US. In fact I bet they do not sell 50,000 CRZs, in the US, total, over the next 4 years.

[crzsuzuka]

Originally Posted by Bulletproof ECO

I wouldn't jump the gun just yet -- to be quite honest most people I talk to that aren't "car people" don't even know what the CR-Z is! I keep having to tell them, NO it's not the CR-V..."

Given some time, and once the stateside guys get their hands on them -- I'm confident we will see sales rise over the next few months.

- Jason

Even in Japan many people do not know what the CR-Z is, but they sold over 10000 in a month.

[JnC]

Originally Posted by TCroly

I can understand why America Honda would like to achieve sales of 50,000 or more per year but I would be willing to wager everything I own that they will never sell any more than 25,000 CRZs in any single year in the US. In fact I bet they do not sell 50,000 CRZs, in the US, total, over the next 4 years.

To put that into perspective, Honda sold about 65,000 S2000's in the US... over 11 years. Granted it was more expensive and a proper sports car.

In terms of visceral reaction among enthusiasts, the CR-Z seems more like the Del Sol than the S2000. Honda sold about 75,000 Del Sols in the US, but look at the distribution:

1993 25,748
1994 21,075
1995 14,021
1996 8,489
1997 5,603

Honda's expecting a hockey stick curve in 5 years for the CR-Z, to approach numbers once held by the CR-X. Are they being realistic or delusional?

Let's hope there's something to the 2012 engines that can make that happen for the CR-Z. The marketplace in the affordable, well handling, eco compact car segment is about get rather crowded with new offerings from other manufacturers.

[crzsuzuka]

Maybe they are hoping for Americans to turn to the hybrid in order to save the Earth while still having fun.

[wildman]

694, does any one have a breakdown on CVT vs 6 speeds? How many had nav? Colors?

[bizzybear]

saw this on TOV (vtec.net) and thought i'd post it here...

694 CR-Z's sold in the month of August... considering the car went on sale Aug 24th... i'd say that's pretty decent considering the lack of advertising for the car... i don't expect those sales to multiply out each week... but it's cool to know that with little effort the car sold quite well it's first week