How Many Automotive Brands Does Honda Have?
In the vast landscape of that is the automobile industry, you would be surprised just how consolidated it all can be when you look at the finer points. We are dealing with gigantic corporations here, and within many corporations, you are going to find a bunch of different labels and brands that branch off from them. For instance, we think of Ford as Ford, which makes sense. We see the Ford F-150 or Focus on the street nearly every day and think of it as one big whole. Well, Ford also owns Lincoln, yet we rarely make that connection when a Lincoln Town Car drops off a wealthy individual at an exclusive gala. Then you have a company like Stellantis that owns over half a dozen car companies.
This brings us to Honda. The Japanese automaker is one of the best-selling automobile brands in the United States, but it too cannot just be boiled down to one company. When it comes to automobiles, Honda actually owns three different car companies, and then there are all the other subsections of Honda that don't sell automobiles, as they have divisions for everything from power tools to jets. Let's just stick with the automobile side of things and break down just what brands Honda has that allow you to get behind the wheel of a car.
Honda
The most obvious company that the Honda Motor Company owns is, naturally, Honda Automobiles. This is the flagship brand of the company that goes all the way back to the found in the 1946. For many years now, Honda has been one of the leaders in manufacturing moderately priced vehicles known for their reliability. From the popular crossover SUV Honda CR-V, which was the sixth best-selling vehicle in the United States in 2023, to the Honda Civic sedan, Honda has established itself as one of the first brands you have to look at if you are looking to purchase a new vehicle or are looking for a used automobile that won't have many issues when you pick it up.
Honda is also the name given to all the branches of the company that aren't about automobiles. Along with the car division, you have Honda Power Sports for all your ATV and motorbike needs. If you're looking to get out on the water, then Honda Marine is there for your next aquatic engine or an entire boat if you so desire. Honda Power Equipment has a vast array over power tools that you can put in your tool shed, from lawn mowers to high pressure pumps to generators. Oh, and if you are looking for a jet to fly around in, HondaJet has you covered there as well. What started as just a brand for automobiles as grown into a gigantic corporation that will fulfill so many different kinds of needs, as long as some kind of motor or engine is involved.
Acura
As previously mentioned, the Honda Automobile division aims to make vehicles that are moderately priced and rather accessible to most people out there looking to purchase a new vehicle. Although some of their cars have hi-tech features, these are not what you would exactly call luxury automobiles. However, that doesn't mean that Honda doesn't have a luxury arm to what they do. Just as Toyota has Lexus, Honda leaves the luxury vehicles to Acura.
Honda launched Acura in 1986 and has been the luxury arm of the company ever since. Strangely enough, Honda may be a Japanese automaker, but Acura was launched in and has primarily serves the United States. The company actually doesn't really have any sort of presence in Japan whatsoever. However, with vehicles like Integra, MDX, and ZDX, Acura has made itself a wonderful luxury vehicle provider, so much so that Acura sales were up 42% in 2023. Not only that, but these cars receive just as wonderful notices for their reliability as your standard Hondas, if not better. The company is coming up on 40 years of production, and it is still going strong.
Afeela
Honda actually has one more car company in its umbrella, but it is not a company you are going to be able to head to a dealership and drive off with a new model. This a company that has yet to release its first vehicle to the public, and it won't be available for a couple of years. This company is called Afeela, and it is a joint venture between Honda and tech giant Sony under the recently formed Sony Honda Mobility label.
Afeela is meant to be the next evolution of the electric vehicle space, and the company debuted its prototype back in January 2023. This is an EV filled to the brim with features, particularly from an entertainment front. This is a vehicle that utilizes Epic Games' Unreal engine through 3D mapping to turn the world into a game on your gigantic dashboard screen or the screens built into the two bucket seats for the rear passengers. Not only that, but you could be driving by a restaurant, and up on your screen will show what the restaurant is, its business hours, and an average star rating. In terms of audio, the Afeela prototype can handle spatial audio, as well as create total silence with a noise-canceling feature.
Pre-orders for the Afeela won't be accepted until 2025, and the vehicle itself won't be ready until 2026, so Honda still has quite a ways to go before it can truly say it has three different automobile companies with cars on the road.