2023 Honda HR-V for US to be sold globally as Corolla Cross-fighting C-segment SUV – coming to Malaysia?


It appears the upcoming US-market Honda HR-V won’t stay exclusive to the country for long. Honda has announced that the crossover will be offered in Europe as well, albeit with an expected new name – the HR-V moniker, as you know, is already attached to the B-segment crossover we all know and love.

While the company didn’t write this verbatim in its press release, the sketches it provided were exactly the same ones used to tease the American HR-V back in January – minus, of course, the HR-V branding on the “number plates”. The car itself will be revealed on April 4, so it won’t be too long before we know what it will actually look like.

For now, we can gather from the renders that the American HR-V will sport a very un-Honda front end (more like a Ford, actually), with a large, vaguely hexagonal grille framed by trapezoidal headlights and a U-shaped air intake design. The L-shaped taillights, meanwhile, give the rear end an almost Acura-like look to it.

Honda has also confirmed that the new car will indeed be larger than the global HR-V, calling it a C-segment SUV. This was hinted at in the sketches through the additional rear quarter light windows, suggesting a longer and more upright rear end. Given that the company already has a larger C-segment model in the shape of the CR-V, this means this new model will be aimed squarely at the Toyota Corolla Cross.

In Europe, the new model will be offered solely as a hybrid, meaning it will include Honda’s e:HEV powertrain. Although no details were released, it should receive the Civic‘s more powerful 184 PS/315 Nm electric motor, juiced by a new direct-injected version of the Accord Hybrid‘s 2.0 litre Atkinson-cycle four-cylinder engine.

This contrasts with the engine options expected in the United States. Again, we still don’t know exactly what those options are, but the car should debut with the same engines as the Civic sold there, including a 152 PS 2.0 litre naturally-aspirated i-VTEC four-cylinder and a 182 PS 1.5 litre VTEC Turbo mill. The e:HEV model should also be offered there at some point.

The good news for us is that the as-yet-unnamed C-segment SUV likely won’t be exclusive to Europe either, as Japanese and Chinese portals Creative Trend and Autohome have published spyshots of the car in their respective countries. This opens the door for it to be sold in Southeast Asia, which would make a lot of sense given that the Corolla Cross has been developed with our markets in mind and that sales of the car are gaining traction both in Malaysia and across the region.



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