Honda to launch diesel cars in India by 2012

For a long time cars like Honda City and Honda Civic have been favourites and churned up good figures.

But recently there has been a flood of new launches that have posed a serious threat to the almost monopolistic models by Honda.

Cars like Volkswagen Vento and Fiat Linea are some of the biggest challengers to the supremacy of Honda City, one of Honda's higgest selling models.

Also, till now there has been no diesel car launched by Honda, which is one of its disadvantages.

However, this is about to change as Honda Siel Cars India will launch two diesel engine options by 2012.

According to sources Honda would bring the diesel engine to India after its launch in Europe and it would be fitted into cars like City, Jazz and the new small car Honda is developing.

The engine is a new 2.0 litre CRDI diesel unit.

Right now Honda offers Honda Accord and the Honda CR-V in 2.2 litre diesel versions in the overseas market.

And diesel engine variants are important on the portfolio of every carmaker wanting to make it big in the Indian market as Indian buyers buy more diesel cars than petrol.

The current Honda portfolio includes cars like CR-V, City, Civic, Accord and Jazz.

Out of these three cars are likely to get the new diesel engine.

The car is available in three variants out of which Honda City 1.5 E MT and Honda City 1.5 S MT are equipped with 1.5L, 1497cc, i-VTEC petrol engine with the 5-speed manual transmission gearbox that is able to produce 118PS power at 6600rpm and 14.9Kg-m torque at 4600rpm.

The Honda City 1.5 S AT too has the same engine and specification and it has automatic transmission gearbox.

The Honda City is priced between 833,500 - 997,500 (ex-showroom, New Delhi).

Honda displayed a concept small car, which is yet unnamed, at the Auto Expo in January this year and is planning to launch it in India by 2011.

The small car is expected to have a 1200 cc engine and is expected to have all the necessary features including airbags, ABS and G-CON body standards, which keep the integrity of the passenger cabin intact in an accident.

Honda has decided to price the small car below 500,000 to be able to compete with Maruti Suzuki Swift and Hyundai i20.

The small car will have over 80 per cent local components to save on the cost of spare parts.

Source;
http://business.rediff.com/slide-show/2010/sep/06/slide-show-1-auto-honda-to-launch-diesel-cars-in-india-by-2012.htm