Top-spec Honda City is the most popular variant

The Honda City is off to an excellent start and we’ve reported several times on it. But the interesting part is that the City’s keen pricing has more customers opting for the top-of-the-line variants. Jnaneswar Sen, Sr. Vice President, Marketing and Sales, Honda Cars India said, “We expected close to 20 percent of the customers to opt for the top-end City but we’ve received more than 50 percent bookings for it.” 

Manufacturing plans had to be tweaked to produce more top-spec variants as a result. Of the Petrol City too, 30 percent sales are of the CVT variants, a majority of which are for the top-end automatic as well. Honda is seeing increasing demand for the automatic City in the future as it has been the trend with the City. Sale of automatics has gone up from 20 percent for the previous generation City. It began with 10-15 percent for the car prior to this.

The VX trim manual City petrol costs Rs 9.85 lakh, the automatic costs Rs 10.9 lakh and the diesel City costs Rs 10.99 lakh, all prices ex-showroom Delhi. The top-trim City gets sunroof, push button start/stop, paddle shifters for the automatic, leather interiors and keyless trunk opening over the variant below it. 

Demand for the City forced Honda into overdrive to get operations at its Tapukara plant up and running as soon as possible. The facility is up in full swing for the first shift and it reduces the load on Honda’s Greater Noida plant as the Amaze is now manufactured at Tapukara. Since Honda uses a flexible assembly line at both plants, the Greater Noida plant focuses on manufacturing the City and the Tapukara plant makes the Amaze, squeezing in the other models as and when there is demand.