After a gap of six years, Honda Cars India Ltd (HCIL) is relaunching all-new Civic, its popular executive sedan, on March 7. With the relaunch, the company is hoping to expand the segment in the market, which does around 11,000 units a year.

The new Civic will come with a diesel engine (1.6L) option besides the 1.8L petrol engine. It is expected to be priced between ₹18 lakh and 24 lakh to compete with the likes of Hyundai Elantra, the Skoda Octavia and the Toyota Corolla Altis. While the diesel variant will have only manual transmission, the petrol version will have only automatic transmission.

In an interview to BusinessLine , Rajesh Goel, Senior Vice-President and Director, Marketing and Sales, HCIL, gave details of the product, the segment and the current market scenario. Excerpts:

Why did Honda take so long to bring back the Civic? What are your expectations as the market has evolved?

The Civic has been an iconic brand in India and there is a lot of expectation on its return. It had significantly expanded the segment last time we launched. It would have continued doing so, had dieselisation not accelerated its pace. Also, there was no diesel variant available at that point in time.

The numbers are part of the LD segment which did about 10,000-11,000 units last fiscal. I am hoping that a product like Civic will help expand the segment. People who were upgrading from upper C segment or who are tending to move to the SUV segment for its glamour will decide to stay back with a sedan.

Why is the localisation so low in this car (only 30 per cent)?

The volumes in the segment are very low (last year around 11,000 units). But, as a company, we have been one of the prime movers of localisation in the country. There are various parts that we have localised compared with many manufacturers who have been here earlier than us.

For instance, our models such as the Amaze and the City have localisation level of as high as 95 per cent. There is no question of not increasing localisation if there is a visible volume available to us. If volumes are growing, we are ready to increase the localisation.

But why are you bringing the diesel variant in BS-IV, and not BS-VI?

Diesel engine requires a lot of effort in terms of tuning and for the additional parts, so the costs are higher. BS-VI regulations will be in force only from April next year. Customers would not be willing to pay more to meet future regulatory demands.

Why not a hybrid model in the Civic?

Hybrid is a difficult proposition to price because it is a conventional IC engine with added motors, lithium-ion battery and a power control unit to make it a hybrid. All these parts are fairly expensive, adding a lot of cost to the car. Unless the customers are really environment-conscious and willing to pay more for green technology, it will not sell.

We have hybrid technology virtually in all our models in many parts of the globe. Depending on the need, getting hybrid on any of our model is not a difficult proposition for us. It cannot happen overnight, but it is not difficult for us. Civic hybrid is also possible, but not for now.

Since Honda has stopped production of the Brio, how do you plan to grow the overall sales from the coming month?

We have stopped production of the Brio and we don’t intend to bring the second generation of the car, as of now. Considering how the dynamics of the Indian market has changed, after so many years, a sedan is the number one selling car in the country.

So, our entry model will be the Amaze. The market has not been kind this year. It has been a rollercoaster after the first quarter. So it is impossible to guess what is happening. Fortunately for us, thanks to the Amaze, and also the sustainability of some of the models, we have been doing better than the market.

The writer was in Bengaluru on the invitation of Honda Cars India

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