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2016 Honda Odyssey Special Edition bundles entertainment system, vacuum for $34,255

The crossover may have supplanted the minivan's popularity, but few vehicles match the capabilities provided by two big, sliding doors and a huge cabin for larger families. With that fact in mind, Honda has updated its highly popular Odyssey with a new Special Edition trim for 2016. Here's what you need to know. The Odyssey SE builds on the $33,305 EX trim by adding a rear-seat entertainment system with a 115-volt rear outlet, the HondaVAC vacuum cleaner, and satellite radio. Total cost for this family friendly tech? An agreeable $34,255, or less than $1,000. That price is extremely favorable compared to the 2015 Odyssey, where an entertainment-equipped Odyssey required the EX-L trim and retailed for $38,255, and a HondaVAC demanded the top-of-the-line Touring Elite trim and a check for $45,480. Bringing the entertainment system and HondaVAC into lower trim levels isn't going to impact the rest of the Odyssey lineup, though. The EX-L with rear-seat entertainment will still be offered, and its price has only jumped $550, while the Touring Elite's price has only jumped $150. And while it might seem like Honda is giving away the farm with the new SE, it's still worth noting that the EX-L adds a lot to the EX package, including a number of safety features, as well as heated leather seats and a power liftgate. Related Video: 2016 Honda Odyssey Poised to Clean Up and Entertain with HondaVAC™ and Rear Seat Entertainment Now Applied to New Special Edition Model High-value Special Edition includes premium features such as Rear Entertainment System, SiriusXM® Radio and HondaVAC™ to offer families even more choice of Honda's award-winning minivan Aug 3, 2015 - TORRANCE, Calif. The 2016 Honda Odyssey goes on sale August 4 with a trim lineup expanded to eight models and a starting Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price (MSRP)1 of $29,275. Slotted between EX and EX-L trims, the MSRP for the new Special Edition (SE) is $33,375 With the acclaimed HondaVAC® and a comprehensive selection of premium features available lower in the trim lineup, along with class-leading EPA fuel-economy ratings of 19/28/22 mpg2 city/highway/combined, the 2016 Odyssey is designed to comfortably and efficiently accommodate the lifestyles of American families.

Honda scraps 2017 sales target amid concerns over quality

Honda CEO Takanobu Ito thinks that the automaker he leads needs to go back to basics to avoid continuing quality concerns. To do that, the boss is making the radical shift of entirely chucking the company's six-million vehicle annual sale targets through 2017, and there's no intention to include the goals in the next midterm plan, either, according to Bloomberg. The move comes soon after last month's announcement to set aside about $425 million to pay for recalls and slice forecasts by about 17,000 cars for the fiscal year. The complete shift from the way most automakers do business stems from the significant number of recalls from Honda last year. While the most glaring example is the Takata airbag problems affecting roughly 5.4 million of the company's vehicles in the US, that's hardly the only one. In Japan, the Fit Hybrid needed five repair campaigns in 12 months to fix various issues, and according to Bloomberg, the Vezel (similar to the HR-V in the US) has needed three. Honda also had to pay $70 million to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for failing to submit 1,729 safety reports to the agency. The Japanese automaker has been working on ways to right the ship for months. In the wake of the Fit recalls, top executives took a three-month, 20 percent pay cut and created an independent position to monitor vehicle quality. Previous Honda CEOs have also offered stern words to Ito. The problems haven't had quite such a dire effect in the US, though. Sales in 2014 were up one percent, and January 2015 showed a year-over-year improvement of 11.5 percent

Brand new cars are being sold with defective Takata airbags

If you just bought a 2016 Audi TT, 2017 Audi R8, 2016–17 Mitsubishi i-MiEV, or 2016 Volkswagen CC, we have some unsettling news for you. A report provided to a US Senate committee that oversees the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and reported on by Automotive News claims these vehicles were sold with defective Takata airbags. And it gets worse. Toyota and FCA are called out in the report for continuing to build vehicles that will need to be recalled down the line for the same issue. That's not all. The report also states that of the airbags that have been replaced already in the Takata recall campaign, 2.1 million will need to eventually be replaced again. They don't have the drying agent that prevents the degradation of the ammonium nitrate, which can lead to explosions that can destroy the airbag housing and propel metal fragments at occupants. So these airbags are out there already. We're not done yet. There's also a stockpile of about 580,000 airbags waiting to be installed in cars coming in to have their defective airbags replaced. These 580k airbags also don't have the drying agent. They'll need to be replaced down the road, too. A new vehicle with a defective Takata airbag should be safe to drive, but that margin of safety decreases with time. If all this has you spinning around in a frustrated, agitated mess, there's a silver lining that is better than it sounds. So take a breath, run your fingers through your hair, and read on. Our best evidence right now demonstrates that defective Takata airbags – those without the drying agent that prevents humidity from degrading the ammonium nitrate propellant – aren't dangerous yet. It takes a long period of time combined with high humidity for them to reach the point where they can rupture their housing and cause serious injury. It's a matter of years, not days. So a new vehicle with a defective Takata airbag should be safe to drive, but that margin of safety decreases with time – and six years seems to be about as early as the degradation happens in the worst possible scenario. All this is small comfort for the millions of people who just realized their brand-new car has a time bomb installed in the wheel or dashboard, or the owners who waited patiently to have their airbags replaced only to discover that the new airbag is probably defective in the same way (although newer and safer!) as the old one.