Honda Cars India president and CEO has confirmed that the Japanese brand is looking to localise strong hybrid powertrains. Speaking to Autocar India on the sidelines of the launch of the third-gen Honda Amaze, Takuya Tsumura said, “It is part of the plan and consideration to localise the hybrids in India.”
- Honda looking to localise future technologies for EVs and hybrids
- Honda to focus on strong hybrids after Elevate-based EV
Honda India hybrid plans
While Honda was the first mass-market carmaker in India to introduce a strong hybrid model, in the form of the City e:HEV, the brand has yet to introduce a second one. The opportunity was there with the Elevate SUV, as the City and Elevate are based on the same platform, but Honda had not localised the strong hybrid powertrain. This meant the potential Elevate hybrid would have been costly, especially with rivals like the Toyota Hyryder and Maruti Grand Vitara offering strong hybrid variants priced competitively from Rs 16.66 lakh and Rs 18.43 lakh, respectively (ex-showroom, Delhi).
Now, as part of its plans to expand the India business, the Japanese company is evaluating a greater level of localisation across the board. Tsumura explained, “Generally, if we want to expand the business in India, we should do more localisation. Amaze has relatively high localisation, but future technologies also need to localise.”
When asked which of the hybrid technologies the brand would focus on, Tsumura replied, “At this moment, we are thinking about the strong hybrid. There will be a plug-in hybrid option in specific markets, which is costly in India. We have to consider what is the best fit in India’s context, and at present, it is strong hybrids.”
Honda EVs and hybrids essential to meet CAFE III emissions norms
In order to meet CAFE III norms that are coming into effect in 2027, Honda had to choose between hybrids and EVs for the way forward. “While developing the Elevate, we had to choose whether to develop more hybrid cars or BEVs as quickly as possible to meet the [CAFE III] norms. We concluded that it is critical to have a BEV on the Elevate platform to meet the norms, but with the other models in the future, we have decided to go with hybrid technology.”
On the other hand, Tsumura also noted the hurdles in introducing strong hybrid tech, mentioning, “Unfortunately, in India, the hybrid benefit is very less in the tax, only a 2 percent difference, so that is why we decided to do with BEV as one alternative and strong hybrid as the other alternative.”
As we had reported before, Honda is developing a new global platform (codenamed: PF2) for a number of upcoming made-in-India models, and this platform has been packaged to be hybrid ready from the outset. A seven-seater SUV based on this platform is expected to arrive in 2027 with petrol and strong hybrid powertrains, while the next-generation City – which will also use the same platform and likely the same powertrains – is expected in 2028.
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