The Honda WR-V, which is the youngest player in the small SUV class, has the task of challenging Toyota Raize and Daihatsu Rocky.
Like Avanza and Xenia or Rush and Terios, the two Daihatsu-Toyota collaboration products also dominate their respective segments.
The presence of the WR-V also had a stumbling block, due to the virality on social media about the acceleration capabilities of Honda's smallest SUV, which did not match the data on paper.
The reason is that Honda claims that the 1.5-liter DOHC i-VTEC engine used in the WR-V is capable of producing 121 PS of power with a peak torque of 145 Nm.
Meanwhile, Raize, which has a 1.0L Turbo engine type, only has 98 PS of power and 140 Nm of torque, so it's 23 PS and 5 Nm lower.
However, when it was tried to accelerate, the WR-V was less agile than Raize, which made the Honda car the target of blasphemy by netizens.
Sales of Honda WR-V Beat Toyota Raize
The dogs barked, the caravan passed, that's probably the best expression to describe the spirit of Honda in Indonesia.
The reason is that even though it gets a lot of blasphemy, the WR-V can be in more demand than Raize, the ruler of the small SUV market.
At least this can be seen from the wholesales data (delivery from factory to dealer) reported by Gaikindo (Indonesian Association of Automotive Industries) recently.
For the May 2023 period, the Honda WR-V was able to distribute 2,481 units, whereas the Toyota Raize only had 1,233 units, or 1,248 units lower than the WR-V.
Meanwhile, its twin, Daihatsu Rocky, is even worse, because last month only 260 units were sent. WR-V sales also excelled in April 2023 with a total of 1,765 units, while Raize only had 594 units and Rocky 487 units.
But Honda has to admit that Raize had dominated sales during the March 2023 period with 2,345 units when the WR-V only sent 1,970 units.
