Manufactured in Indonesia, they will be importing the cars from the Honda Prospect Motor in Jakarta. So far, the Freed has been rolled out from their plant there to markets in Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore where they are developed for the premium segment of the compact MPV market.
Since it was announced that the Freed will be manufactured in Indonesia, a lot have been expecting it to hit our shores and this have proven to be right where Honda is set to compete with Toyota’s Avanza and such. Targeting the young urban families who are looking for practicality, style and aesthetics in the MPV, this car comes with automatic sliding doors behind as well as a flat-floor walk through cabin which distinguishes it from its competitors.
According to Toru Takahashi, the Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Honda Malaysia, since the Freed was launched in Japan in 2008, it has been very well received in the region and there has been some good response from the Malaysian market. Since its launch then, the Freed was the best selling minivan model in Japan for 6 months and to date has rolled out some 130,000 units.
The current version available in Indonesia comes with either electronic or non-electronic rear sliding doors and it comes with the same engine fitted in the Honda Jazz and the Honda City i-VTEC which is the 1.5 liter i-VTEC engine fitted with a 5 speed automatic transmission gearbox. Apparently, in some markets, you can choose between the seven or eight seater version although the additional seat is seen as a bit too small by some but their own walk-through layout enables you to get in and out pretty easily. In fact, so confident of Honda about the huge space of the Freed is that they claimed that you can fit in a 27 inch wheel bicycle at the back without having to remove the seats or the tyres. Surely that is something to look forward to and at a time when its competitor Toyota is facing problems with recalls and defects, this would post a great opportunity for Honda to get some market share.
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