The Accord will continue to be sold by Honda Australia for now, even though it remains all but invisible to potential customers.
Honda Australia is adamant about keeping its Accord sedan in showrooms for as long as possible, despite very low consumer interest.
To the end of July this year, Honda Australia has sold only 72 examples of its Accord mid-size sedan, which places it just ahead of the discontinued Volkswagen Passat in terms of segment sales.
Meanwhile, the Toyota Camry, Australia's top-selling sedan, has moved 5415 examples year-to-date – or around 75 times more than the Accord in the same time period.
In fact, so invisible is the Accord to customers that Ferrari delivered more examples of its high-end metal this year, 102 units to be exact, than Honda has found customers for its mid-size sedan.
Despite this, Honda Australia President and CEO Jay Joseph told Drive the Accord still plays an important role in the brand’s line-up, at least for now.
“When you say Honda, the first word that come out of people’s mouths – at least outside of two-wheelers – are Accord and Civic, and we’re fortunate enough to have Accord as our flagship and Civic Type R as our performance halo,” he said.
“Does that mean we’ll always have an Accord? Not necessarily.
“And yes, the volume is relatively low, but for the customers who choose an Accord, they’re so happy with it.”
The 11th-generation Accord only arrived in Australia last year, but it has faced an uphill battle in the shrinking passenger-car market.
Outside the aforementioned Passat and Camry, it also competes against the Hyundai Sonata (234 sales year-to-date) and Skoda Octavia (440 sales YTD), with Mazda forced to discontinue its Mazda 6 earlier this year due to mandatory safety regulations.
Tung Nguyen has been in the automotive journalism industry for over a decade, cutting his teeth at various publications before finding himself at Drive in 2024. With experience in news, feature, review, and advice writing, as well as video presentation skills, Tung is a do-it-all content creator. Tung’s love of cars first started as a child watching Transformers on Saturday mornings, as well as countless hours on PlayStation’s Gran Turismo, meaning his dream car is a Nissan GT-R, with a Liberty Walk widebody kit, of course.
