After close to five years of disappointing sales, the Honda Crosstour will be discontinued, as the automaker also announced several major changes that would allow for more efficiency in its North American plants.
The Crosstour’s troubles arguably stem from its being a “tweener” – not quite crossover, not quite conventional car, not quite a station wagon. And in 2014, the vehicle sold only 11,800 units, a 30 percent drop-off from 2013’s sales figures. However, it wasn’t just the Crosstour that got discontinued among these types of vehicles, as Toyota previously killed off the Venza due to similar reasons – poor sales figures.
“The Crosstour was always a bit of an oddball that fit somewhere in between a number of niche categories,” opined Kelley Blue Book senior analyst Alec Gutierrez, stressing that the vehicle was indeed hard to categorize. “While well-intended, it missed the mark for most consumers, so it is no surprise to see Honda parting ways with its CUV/Wagon/Accord-based offering.”
With the Crosstour’s eventual demise, that allows Honda to free up manufacturing capacity for some of its other vehicles, including the Ridgeline pickup, the Pilot utility vehicle, and the Odyssey minivan. A new CR-V compact crossover may also benefit from this, same with the 2016 HR-V subcompact crossover. According to American Honda Motor EVP John Mendel, the move allows for the “fortification of (Honda’s) light truck lineup.”