Honda offers a glimpse at two unidentified concepts coming to the Beijing Motor Show this month.
It wasn’t all that many years ago when we began seeing significant news emerging from the Beijing Motor Show. Of course, it wasn’t all that long ago that China emerged from being an automotive backwater to being the world’s biggest car market.
And this year is likely to prove one of the biggest at the biennial Beijing show, with automakers such as Nissan, GM and Volkswagen all planning announcements in less than two weeks. The list also includes Honda, which has just released sketches of two concept vehicles it plans to debut in the Chinese capital.
While it’s difficult to be sure what we’re seeing, the top shot would suggest something in the Accord category, no surprise considering the ever-popular sedan is set to get a complete update in the months ahead. We already got a sense of where Honda is going with the Accord Coupe, thanks to the two-door prototype that premiered in Detroit, last January, but this could be the eagerly-awaited sedan.
The lower image is clearly something in the “people mover” category, but whether it’s the next-generation Odyssey minivan or some other new product, well, we’re apparently going to have to wait and see.
This will be a big year for Honda, which is planning to introduce three hybrids into the Chinese market this year, the Insight, CR-Z and Fit, as well as two new Acura models, the compact ILX and RLX flagship. Chinese show-goers will, meanwhile, get to see the Acura NSX concept that also debuted in Detroit.
Honda says it will launch 10 new or fully updated models in China between 2013 and 2015 and by mid-decade expects to double last year’s sales volume.
The maker also plans to introduce a wide array of new powertrain systems, collecting dubbed Earth Dream Technology. That will include a hybrid-based version of the torque-vectoring Super Handling All-Wheel-Drive, or SH-AWD, system.
Honda has been making significant use of its current Chinese manufacturing base. It was, in fact, the first Western automaker to begin exporting significant numbers of products from China to Europe, in the form of the subcompact Jazz. Known in North America as the Honda Fit, Chinese-made subcompacts will also be dispatched to the Canadian market as a temporary fix until Honda can open up a new assembly plant in Mexico in 2014.