Here’s how three Honda retailers reacted to news of Sony Honda Mobility’s strategy to offer its vehicle service plans to competing brands:
“Honda is taking a risk in alienating its dealer body, which sold about 1.2 million vehicles a year pre-COVID, for a poorly thought-out plan to sell somewhere around 100,000 vehicles annually. The Sony-Honda JV’s attempt to maintain the fiction that they are ‘independent’ from Honda is disingenuous. [The] products are being designed and produced using Honda resources and they should solely be sold by Honda dealers. Honda should not be competing with the same dealers who have invested billions of dollars in their Honda franchises and helped make Honda a legendary brand.” — Bill Feinstein, chairman of the Honda National Dealer Advisory Board and president of Planet Honda in Tilton, N.H., and general manager of Planet Honda in Union, N.J.