The upcoming new-generation Honda City is all set to be launched in India in the coming weeks, and now we have information that the company will continue to sell the existing model alongside the new-gen Honda City. The previous-gen Honda City, is already BS6 compliant, which means the carmaker can continue to produce it in India, and by having both models, the company intends to offer a wider range of options for customers. It is the first time that the company will be adopting this strategy for a product in India. Now even though the existing model in the fourth generation of the Honda City in India, globally it is the sixth-gen model, and the same principle applies to the upcoming City as well.
Speaking to us in the latest episode of Freewheeling with SVP, Rajesh Goel, Sr. Vice President & Director, Sales & Marketing, Honda Cars India said, “The current City, the fourth generation as we call it, is also BS6 certified, and we were selling the BS6 certified, current City before the lockdown happened. So, technically, we can keep producing it, and we intend to keep offering the fourth and the new fifth-generation City parallelly to offer a wider choice to the customers, across various price bands, and also, there has been a demand from various people. It happens with almost every generation of the City, as to ‘why do you need to discontinue this’. So, respecting the opinion, I think we intend to keep both the fourth and the fifth generation of the City together. So that customers depending on who likes what and what price point suits which customer, we have a great lot of options available to satisfy all our customers.”
Now, this is not the first time that we have seen a carmaker simultaneously sell two different generations of a model in India. Maruti Suzuki has been selling the previous-gen Dzire for the fleet market, whereas, Hyundai India, too follows this strategy with the previous-gen Grand i10 and Xcent. So, when asked whether Honda too only plans to offer the lower variants of the older City to make to maintain a lower price point, Goel said, “I think City has been a car, which has been a highly desirable brand, and it has been kind of a benchmark, so to say. A car which everybody wants to drive in that segment and therefore most customers, of the City, in any generation have always preferred to own a kind of a loaded version. So, I do not, obviously intend to sell a bare version of the old City just to keep the price point low, that’s not the intent.”
The current-generation Honda City is offered in seven variants and is powered by only a 1.5-litre i-VTEC petrol engine which is now BS6 compliant and is mated to a 5-speed manual gearbox as standard while a CVT automatic gearbox is optional. Rakesh Goel has confirmed that the car will continue to remain a petrol-only model, however, the new-generation City will be offered with both petrol and diesel engine options. While the petrol version of the new-gen Honda City will share its powertrain with the older model, the diesel version will get a new oil burner. Transmission options for the new Honda City are likely to include a 5-speed manual and a CVT automatic transmission.