That's a very logical assumption...

+1

Can you just imagine the computer program and dealer feedback Honda uses to do this?

My thoughts on this:

I haven't read through this whole thread, but has anybody considered that it is rare for Honda to come out with a car so early for its model year? For someone who buys a Fit in April of 06 and drives it until December 07 the car would still considered "new" if he/she was to sell it after driving it for a over a year and a half. The depreciation will be very slight, and with Honda's reputation for resale value (my 7 year old 99 Civic Si is still worth close to $10k, and I bought it new for $15.5k), I think one could even sell the car for atleast 85% of the MSRP that far into the future.

So even if I bought the car for MSRP, I wouldn't mind, but of course this car has little overhead, and if I could get it for invoice, which is probably only $500 under MSRP, it still is $500.00 that would be in my pocket.

And who knows? If gas prices hit close to $3/gallon for regular, there may even be less depreciation!

That's a good point about the extended model year. As said, all depends on the laws of supply and demand car wise and gasoline wise. Honda is taking a risk bringing this car to the U.S. otherwise it would have been here long ago.

Toyota faced the same problems but hedged its bets with the "separate" Scion brand with its "own" brand strategy of no negotiate pricing.

Who knows, Honda might find out after all that in the b segment the juice isn't worth the squeeze and we'll only see the tail end of the present Fit's production while the next iteration is only for the rest of the world, again.

That would be GREAT, but highly unlikely.

MattK,
I think in the USA, its more normal to consider 15,000 miles annually as an average.