Honda’s Thailand office has confirmed that the new generation 2023 Honda CR-V will be making its Southeast Asian debut at this month’s Bangkok International Motor Show.

The brief press statement released by Honda Automobile (Thailand) Co., Ltd. included two photos – one showing an e:HEV RS variant and another a VTEC Turbo variant. The latter has an AWD badge on the tailgate. LaneWatch camera is also visible on the front-left side mirror.

The e:HEV RS variant is clearly the higher specifications model, with larger two-tone wheels, black side mirrors, LED headlamps, and sporty RS grille.

Honda Thailand says the full suite of Honda Sensing driving aids features will be offered as standard.

Two powertrain options will be offered there – a 2.0-litre two-motor full-hybrid and a 1.5-litre VTEC Turbo. Both powertrains are familiar to Malaysians. The former is already offered in the Honda Civic e:HEV RS hybrid while the latter is carried over from the outgoing generation CR-V.

Typically, there is a circa 6 months gap between a model market’s launch in Thailand – home to the leader ‘mother plant’ in the region – and local launch in Malaysia.

Thus, we don’t expect the 2023 Honda CR-V to launch in Malaysia until end-2023, and this is assuming that the March debut in Thailand will be a market launch and not a preview.

The 6-month lead time is necessary because to keep prices low, Honda Malaysia will need to locally assemble the new model here with a certain minimum level of locally-sourced parts, so the 2023 Honda CR-V can benefit from excise tax rebates.

This also means that the Melaka plant needs to audit and validate the local parts, conduct trial production to calibrate the plant’s assembly line tools and robots, before commencing series production.

The 44th Bangkok International Motor Show will begin on 22-March.