Honda Cars India is on an expansion spree of sorts and apart from setting up a new facility, the car maker has also made some plans to increase its presence across India by expanding its dealership network. Currently, Honda Cars India dealers count stands at 163, with a presence in 102 cities across the country. The car maker has now planned to increase the network to 230 dealerships, in 150 cities.
If all goes as per the plan, the expansion drive will be successfully completed by March 2015. Interestingly, all of the new dealerships will be opened in tier 3 cities, which currently account for 50 percent of total Honda Cars India dealerships. Also, sales coming from tier 2 and tier 3 cities account for as much as 65 percent of tolal sales of the Amaze, the entry level sedan in Honda’s product portfolio for India. Honda is now expecting 58 percent of total sales of the new City to come from tier 2 and tier 3 cities.
The new Honda City was launched in India early last month and for the first time in India, goes on sale in both petrol and diesel variants. Powering the diesel City is a 1.5 litre i-DTEC diesel engine that makes the new City the most fuel efficient car in the country with an ARAI certified fuel mileage of 26 kmpl. The motor has a max power of 100ps@3600 rpm and peak torque of 200 Nm@1750 rpm. The motor comes mated to a 6 speed manual transmission.
Powering the Honda City petrol is an improved 1.5L i-VTEC engine that has a max power of 119 ps@6600 rpm and peak torque of 145 Nm@4600 rpm. The engine can be bought with either a 5 speed manual or a CVT transmission. The CVT variant has an ARAI certified fuel efficiency of 18kmpl. The manual transmission variant has an ARAI rated fuel efficiency of 17.8 kmpl
via Autocar India