As part of a process of rebuilding corporate sales after a difficult 2011, Honda is hoping to make more fleets aware of the fact it builds the majority of its cars for the UK at its Swindon plant.

“It’s a huge opportunity for us – we’ve got to do a much better job in telling our customers that 95% of our cars are built in the UK,” Honda fleet boss Ed Hummel told BusinessCar. “It’s British working and British jobs, but I’m not sure it’s as well-known as it should be.”

Honda claimed building cars in the UK also helps with lead times. “We build a car on a Thursday, the customer can have it by the end of the next week,” he continued. “And they recognise the supply chain – every one job equals 10 jobs in the chain, and our supply chain is all over the UK.”

But Honda is continuing with its aim of only selling core fleet business. The strategy is to grow the true fleet market, and not do any distress business,” said Hummel. “Everyone says it, but with others there is no evidence in the SMMT stats – we are the only top 20 player to have done zero daily rental.”

The goal is to sell 20,000 Honda cars into the corporate sector this year, which is only 3000 more than 2011 despite the arrival of the new Civic, but Hummel said much of Civic volume will replace Jazz models no longer going into Motability.

“The Jazz will come down, we’ll reduce the volume to Motability,” said Hummel. “The Jazz has been a huge success in Motability, but we’re pulling volumes back as we don’t want to stress the RVs.” The target for 2013 is 30,000 corporate units.

Other key areas of focus include public sector fleets. “The public sector is buying 50,000 units and we sold around 1600 cars into that sector last year,” commented Hummel. “It will be a key area of focus for us.”

The Insight hybrid is also getting a revision. “It’s unique – a five-seater with automatic for 96g/km,” summed up Hummel. “All the German models are diesel manuals – we’re looking to target the London estate agents or anyone that needs to transport people in inner city space where automatic and sub-100g/km are important. There are also fit and finish improvements and ride and handling upgrades, so it’s a big upgrade.”

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