From left, Vice President of Marketing and Sales of the Honda Cars India Ltd. Kunal Behl, the company’s President and CEO Takuya Tsumura, the company’s Marketing and Sales Director Ryuto Shimizu, and Product Development Team representative for the All-New Amaze from Honda R&D Asia Pacific Peerachet T at the global debut of the All-New 3rd Generation Honda Amaze, in New Delhi, Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2024.
| Photo Credit: PTI

Honda Cars India on Friday (December 20, 2024) said it will hike prices across its model range by up to 2 per cent from January next year, in order to partially offset the impact of rising input costs.

The company sells models like Amaze, City and Elevate in the domestic market.

The automaker will increase the prices of its models by up to 2% from the beginning of January 2025, Honda Cars India Vice President – Marketing and Sales Kunal Behl said.

The company has been making strong efforts to absorb price increases during this year, ensuring minimal impact on customers, he added.

“However, due to the continued rise in input costs and logistics, a small portion of this impact will be passed on to customers through a price revision from the new year,” Mr. Behl said.

Additionally, the all-new third generation Amaze which was launched at a very competitive introductory price, will also see a price revision by mid of next month, he added.

Already various carmakers including Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai and Tata Motors have announced price hikes from January.

Honda Elevate
| Photo Credit: S. Muralidhar

Honda Cars India plans to introduce five sports utility vehicle in the country by 2030 as it looks to have a strong presence in the robustly growing segment, according to a top company executive.

The company, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Japanese auto major Honda Motor Company, on Monday made a foray into the mid-sized SUV segment with an all-new product — Elevate — priced between ₹10.99-15.99 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi).

The model will compete with the likes of Hyundai Creta, Maruti Suzuki Grand Vitara, Kia Seltos and Toyota’s Urban Cruiser Hyryder, among others.

“Our focus is now on the SUV segment. Starting from Elevate we are going to introduce five SUVs by 2030,” Honda Cars India President & CEO Takuya Tsumura told PTI in an interaction.

It is very important for the company to be in the SUV segment which has become the leading vertical in terms of volumes, he added.

The contribution of the SUV segment in the overall passenger vehicle sales in the country has risen to over 48% this year from 43% in FY23.

Honda sells City and Amaze sedans in the country.

With Elevate it expects to bring in a new set of customers to its fold.

“We have been missing in the SUV segment, so the introduction of Elevate is a big day for us,” Tsumura said.

The mid-sized SUV holds the potential to become a key pillar of Honda’s business in India, offering remarkable value to the evolving customers, he added.

The company plans to bring a battery electric version of the model within next three years, Tsumura noted. Elaborating further, Honda Cars India VP (Marketing and Sales), Kunal Behl said the mid-sized SUV segment (over 4 meter in length) has witnessed a jump of 34% in sales this year as compared with last year with average monthly sales now hovering around the 70,500-unit mark.

He noted that the company has received great response for Elevate after commencing bookings in July and the focus now is on the timely deliveries in the festive season.

“We are not targeting any specific number (in terms of sales)  but till now after commencing bookings in July, without revealing the price we have got 5-6 months of waiting on certain trims,” Behl said.

So the current endeavour is to align production to meet the demand, he added.

Tsumura noted that the company has ramped up production capacity to 660 units a day at its Tapukara (Rajasthan) based manufacturing facility. The company is also planning to increase the production capacity  in the future, he added.

When asked about the ship shortage issue, Tsumura noted that the situation is much better now and that the company has acquired required electronic components for Elevate in advance in order to meet the production plan.

The company also plans to export Elevate but first the focus is to cater to the pending orders in the domestic market, he added. The manual four variants of Elevate come with an introductory price ranging between ₹10.99 lakh and ₹14.9 lakh while the automatic trims are tagged between ₹13.2 lakh and ₹15.99 lakh.

The model is powered by a 1.5 litre petrol engine paired with a six-speed manual and a seven-speed continuously variable transmission (CVT). The manual and CVT trims come with a fuel efficiency of 15.31 kmpl, 16.92 kmpl respectively, as per the automaker.