Honda: No Increased Incentives

It's no secret that I'm in the market for a new minivan and I've also been pretty vocal that I like Honda's Odyssey. I've been watching the minivan market like a hawk and currently Honda's incentive to the dealer for the 2008 Odyssey is running at $2,000. Most dealers, when pushed, will cough up all of that money to the consumer.

These incentives are yielding prices of around $34,000 for an Odyssey Touring (MSRP w/ delivery of $40,645). A nice little discount. However, always looking for something even better, some consumers are waiting to see what will happen when the current dealer incentive expires on March 3rd. Most of us are guessing that the incentive will stay the same, but there is a small hope that things might improve.

However, my hopes seemed to have been dashed by a report in today's Automotive News. According to the article, Honda's CEO Takeo Fukui said that although Honda's incentives are slightly higher than in 2007, it doesn't plan to increase them to help sell cars in what's expected to be a tough year. Well drats!

Now, that's the larger picture of course. Honda could choose to play around with incentives on certain models and in certain regions to help stimulate demand, so I'm not giving up all hope just yet. Honda acknowledges that markets like Florida and California are softer than other regions.

This much is true: Honda's much more bullish than Nissan on the current state of affairs of the USA's automotive sector.