The once popular Honda Odyssey Despite the availability of right-hand drive and hybrid drive, the people mover won’t be returning Down Under any time soon.
Honda Australia CEO Jay Joseph said Daily Sparkz in Tokyo that despite the availability of right-hand drive for Honda’s rival for the best-selling Kia Carnival, there are currently no plans to reintroduce the long-standing nameplate.
“At the moment, no, for a number of reasons. We’re not dealing with that today – there are a number of factors that I’m not going to go into at the moment,” Mr Joseph said.
“It’s possible… (but) the right-hand drive models are somewhat limited. That’s why we’re not seriously thinking about it today.”
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“We are paying attention to these lineups and looking at whether they could fill any gaps in our lineup, but for a number of reasons we wouldn’t do that at the moment,” Mr Joseph added.
Japanese production of the Odyssey ended in 2021 and has also been discontinued in right-hand drive markets such as Australia. The nameplate continued in left-wing markets such as China and North America – but the latter is getting its own version, which is significantly different from the Asian model.
Suddenly, in 2023, Honda announced that the RHD Odyssey would be re-released, at least for Japan, with the vehicles sourced from the GAC-Honda joint venture factory in Guangzhou, China.
The Japanese-market Odysseys are powered by an e:HEV hybrid system that combines a 107kW/175Nm 2.0-litre naturally aspirated four-cylinder petrol engine and two electric motors; The drive motor alone produces 135 kW/315 Nm.
System output is 135kW – the same as the similar powertrain in the Civic and CR-V e:HEV models delivered in Australia – while fuel consumption is quoted at 19.9-19.6km/l or around 5.0-5.1L/100km.
In its last full year of sales in Australia, the Odyssey was the second best-selling people mover behind the Kia Carnival. For the 2021 calendar year, Honda registered 1143 units compared to 5862 units for the Kia.
However, the MPV market has been booming since then, largely thanks to the increased popularity of Carnival, which recorded 10,080 registrations in 2024 alone, accounting for 83.4 percent of the sub-$70,000 MPV segment.
This trend is likely to continue this year: segment sales have increased by 7.9 percent year to date (as of September 30), while Carnival increased by 5.0 percent to 8,015 units in the January to September period.
It’s sad for Odyssey fans that Honda doesn’t seem to be hoping for a piece of the pie in the current situation. Although Mr Joseph would not confirm what “number of reasons” prevented the Odyssey from being reintroduced locally, it appears that sourcing vehicles from the Chinese factory could be a challenge.
Honda currently offers a seven-seater in selected variants of its mid-range SUV CR-V. Despite being a 5+2 rather than a full seven-seater, the CR-V is available in VTi
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MORE: Explore the Honda Odyssey showroom
