Old and new Honda City sedans will sell together in India: Here’s why

Honda will soon officially introduce the all-new fifth-generation City in the Indian market. Earlier, the car was scheduled to be revealed in March but due to the nation-wide coronavirus pandemic and lockdown, the plan was deferred. Now that the lockdown rules have been eased, Honda is expected to launch the all-new in the coming few weeks. However, the all-new Honda City will not replace the current version of the City. Instead, both the cars will be sold in the market side-by-side.

According to ACI, the all-new City and the current version of the model that is already on sale in the Indian market will be sold together. Since both the models are so different from each other, they will co-exist in the market. Honda will be able to widen its target audience with the new strategy. This will also add more arsenal to Honda’s strongest area in India – the sedans.

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Since both the cars are known as the City, in the Indian market, Honda might use a suffix with the fifth-generation model to distinguish it from the older version. It will be similar to the Toyota Innova Crysta. The report also claims that Honda will target fleet car owners with the current-generation of Honda City similar to what Maruti did with the Dzire Tour. Honda has already upgraded the current version of the Honda City to meet the BS6 emission norms, however, only the petrol-powered variants are BS6 compliant. The all-new City will get both petrol and diesel engine options. It is not known if Honda will re-introduce the BS6 compliant diesel variants of the current City though. It is quite possible that Honda will only sell the fourth-generation City with the petrol engine options and introduce CNG variants to meet the requirements of the fleet car owners.

The all-new Honda City is likely to be around Rs 40,000 more expensive than the current version of the model. Honda may also strip down the features in the current-generation City to make a bigger difference in the price and specify the segments appropriately. The car will be offered in three trim levels – V, VX and ZX in the Indian market. The new fifth-generation Honda City gets 20mm longer wheelbase than the fourth-generation version. It will offer full LED headlamps, full LED tail lamps, connected infotainment system with Amazon Alexa support, lane watch system, 7.0-inch high definition MID, segment-first vehicle stability assist and agile handling assist and more.

The car will come powered by both a 1.5-litre petrol engine and a 1.5-litre diesel engine. Both the engine options will offer a CVT automatic transmission as an option. Honda is likely to launch the all-new City by the end of this month or early next month.

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