3:52 pm, May 31, 2023
Honda’s UK boss has confirmed that it will begin introducing agency sales later this year, rolling it out first to its new electric e:NY1.
It marks a significant change for the car brand’s typically conservative approach to car selling as the introduction of this new electric crossover aims to open the brand up to a younger audience.
Honda’s new e:NY1, which is only its second electric car after the funky ‘e’ hatchback, will be the first model that the firm will also offer the option to buy completely online, though it will still be sold through dealers.
Rebecca Adamson, head of Honda UK’s car division, told Car Dealer that it would be the ‘very lightest touch’ of agency agreements.
Adamson said: ‘With the e:NY1, we will offer that for sale online or in store, so customers can do as little or as much as they want online. So if they want to buy a car exactly as they do today, or if you want to do it fully online, that’s absolutely fine.
‘With that, the contract will be between Honda UK and the customer, which will be a direct sale and technically we will enter into the very lightest touch of agency agreements with our retailers.’
It will only initially be the e:NY1 that will be sold through this sales model as the firm tests the process.
Adamson added: ‘We will test that [the agency model] with the e:NY1 and we will make sure it delivers what we want in terms of customer experience and potentially move the rest of the range to that as well.’
Despite the firm exploring the possibility of range-wide agency sales, Adamson added that Honda UK ‘currently had no intentions of moving to a full agency solution’.
The e:NY1 is set to arrive in the UK as part of a flurry of new metal for Honda. It will be joined by the hybrid ZR-V – a rival for the Nissan Qashqai – as well as a next-generation version of the popular CR-V, which will grow in size and be Honda’s first plug-in hybrid. All will arrive in the UK by the end of 2023.
Honda is hoping these new models will bring a significant uplift in the firm’s UK sales, as the firm targets 35,000 units in 2024. In 2022, not helped by supply constraints that lead to certain models being temporarily taken off sale, the firm registered 24,000 new cars.
