Honda launched the new City in India a couple of months ago and its upscale design, levels of refinement and features on offer, were all one step above the outgoing model (which remains on sale). However, it continues to use the 1.5-litre petrol and diesel engines in India that we’ve grown familiar with seeing under the bonnet of the town . There was an RS-spec version in Thailand that made use of a replacement 1.0-litre turbo-petrol engine, but it had been quickly ruled out for India. Now, however, there’s a replacement powertrain that has us excited — a hybrid.
The Japanese carmaker has launched the town with a robust hybrid powertrain in Thailand. it’s unlike the mild-hybrid systems we are wont to seeing on mass market cars in India, like the Maruti Ciaz, which is that the City’s competitor. While the mild-hybrid system assists the engine during a limited number of scenarios, the strong self-charging hybrid system, dubbed the game Hybrid i-MMD by Honda, can even run during a pure EV mode only.
This system makes use of two electric motors, one to power the wheels and therefore the other to start out the engine. the electrical motors have an output of 109PS and 253Nm. The 1.5-litre petrol engine, which is sweet for 98PS and 127Nm, acts sort of a supplementary power grid , whose job is to primarily top up the lithium-ion battery. It can, however, also step in and power the wheels when needed.
The transmission on board is an electronic CVT. the whole powertrain during this hybrid City, dubbed the e:HEV, is rated to deliver 27.78kmpl. The petrol City currently sold in India returns anywhere between 17 and 19kmpl consistent with ARAI, counting on the transmission options you select .
Honda has launched the town E in Thailand at 8,39,000 baht, which translated to Indian currency stands somewhere around Rs 20 lakh. Compare this to the regular City sold in Thailand, the top-spec variant of which matches for 7,39,000 baht, and that we get an approximate price of Rs 17 lakh.
There are minor differences because the car sold in Thailand uses a smaller turbo-petrol engine and gets a few of more safety features, but they’re easily offset by the very fact that the India-spec car gets a much bigger 1.5-litre petrol. Thus, in Thailand, where the town hybrid is manufactured locally, there’s a premium of around Rs 3 lakh for the hybrid City.
As far because the India launch cares , Honda had made a press release a couple of years ago that it intends to bring a mass market hybrid vehicle to India in 2021 and with this development, we are pretty sure it’ll be the town . We expect them to assemble the hybrid City locally in India and for that, we expect them to demand an identical premium. For your reference, the top-spec petrol City currently retails for Rs 14.45 lakh (ex-showroom New Delhi). None of the cars within the sub-20 lakh bracket offer a robust hybrid powertrain as of yet.