{"id":43989,"date":"2011-11-01T11:15:29","date_gmt":"2011-11-01T15:15:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thedetroitbureau.com\/?p=43989"},"modified":"2011-11-01T10:41:38","modified_gmt":"2011-11-01T14:41:38","slug":"honda-planning-major-redesign-of-new-civic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/2011\/11\/honda-planning-major-redesign-of-new-civic\/","title":{"rendered":"Honda Planning Major Redesign of New Civic"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Honda will race a redesign of the much-criticized new Civic to market ASAP.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It has not been a very good year, according to John Mendel, Honda of America\u2019s top U.S. executive. Not only has the maker been hammered by a series of production cuts \u2013 the latest the result of flooding in Thailand \u2013 but one of its most important products has received a critical drubbing from the media and a tepid response from potential buyers.<\/p>\n

That will send the maker\u2019s designers and engineers back to work to come up with a significant \u201crefresh\u201d of the 2012 Honda Civic, reports Automotive News, which should be ready to go to market in time for the 2013 model-year.<\/p>\n

“We take feedback seriously, regardless of who it’s from, and we will act accordingly quickly,” John Mendel, American Honda executive vice president, said in an interview in San Diego, where the maker is revealing another critical new model, the 2012 Honda CR-V.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Inside News!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Suggesting the maker is \u201cappropriately energized,\u201d Mendel said Honda is hoping to act as quickly as possible to address criticism of the latest-generation Civic.\u00a0 The question is how much can be done in short order.\u00a0 The 2012 version of the compact Civic was the result of a 6-year gestation and normally Honda spends at least three years to develop a mid-cycle update.<\/p>\n

But few of the carmaker\u2019s products have received nearly the drubbing that has been handed the Civic since it debuted earlier this year.\u00a0 Critics faulted it for its unambitious, holdover styling, its extensive use of cheap plastics in the interior, and the mediocre performance, among other things.<\/p>\n

Driving home that message, the Civic became the target of an unusually aggressive review by influential Consumer Reports magazine, normally a fan of Honda products.\u00a0 For the first time in years, the non-profit publication lifted its Recommended Buy from the 2012 Civic update.<\/p>\n

Complicating matters, Honda was hit hard by the production shortages that followed the March 11 Japanese earthquake and tsunami.\u00a0 That disrupted the launch of the 2012 Civic just as the maker was rolling out an ambitious national advertising campaign.<\/p>\n

In an interview with TheDetroitBureau.com, Mendel noted that Honda of America has lost 200,000 units of production since March.\u00a0 That has forced dealers to sell whatever they\u2019ve had left on their lots, drawing down their inventories from a collective 170,000 vehicles a year ago to just 50,000 right now.<\/p>\n

(For more on this story, <\/em>Click Here.)<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Honda had been hoping to stage a re-launch of the Civic \u2013 alongside the new CR-V crossover.\u00a0 But that was before the maker was slammed by yet another natural disaster.<\/p>\n

The ongoing flooding in Thailand has inundated the maker\u2019s plant there.\u00a0 And while Honda of America does not import cars from the Southeast Asian nation, Thai-made components, notably microprocessors, are used on all six Honda assembly plants in the U.S. and Canada.<\/p>\n

As a result, TheDetroitBureau.com reported yesterday, Honda will have to slash production at the North American production network by half in the coming weeks, while the introduction of the CR-V is likely also to be rolled back.<\/p>\n

(<\/em>Click Here<\/span> for more.)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Honda will race a redesign of the much-criticized new Civic to market ASAP. As TheDetroitBureau.com reports, an updated version could be ready to roll by next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34983,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"make":[],"post-state":[],"category_old":[151],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43989"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43989\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43989"},{"taxonomy":"make","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/make?post=43989"},{"taxonomy":"post-state","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post-state?post=43989"},{"taxonomy":"category_old","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/category_old?post=43989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}