As we talk about the much-hyped Honda Brio Amaze sedan, which was recently launched in Thailand, Honda is gearing up to setup a diesel plant in Rajasthan. The greenfield diesel engine facility will be setup at the company’s second industrial location at Tapukara, in Rajasthan.
Mr. Jnaneswar Sen, Senior vice President (sales and marketing), Honda Cars India, has revealed this news and confirmed that the plant will commence operations from early 2013. Honda Cars India is supposed to assemble the 1.5-Liter i-DTEC EarthDreams Diesel Engine in this facility.
“We plan to launch the diesel car at a very aggressive price that would require high level of localisation in the Indian market. We have finalized plans to set up a diesel engine plant at Tapukara in Rajasthan by next year but the finer details regarding capacity and investments are yet to be worked out”, he added.
Honda will start assembling the 1.5-Liter i-DTEC EarthDreams Diesel engines, which will power the upcoming Brio Amaze sedan. However, the interesting bit is here! The company confirms that this engine will not power up any of the existing models in the line-up.
“The diesel engine would not power any of the existing compact cars like the current models of Brio, Jazz and the City sedan. We will have this diesel technology reserved only for the new cars that would be introduced over the next 2-3 years”, Mr. Sen said.
Well, this is a bit disheartening, we must say! Considering cars like Brio and Jazz which has the true potential to take Honda into the mass is being ruled out to have a diesel heart. With a diesel engine and aggressive pricing, Brio and Jazz could have given competitors a tough run for the top place. That makes us wonder why and what is Honda currently testing in Brio diesel which has been caught several times on Indian roads?
However, the good news is that the next-gen models of future cars like City among others would definitely get this diesel option. We shared with you the possible first ever spyshots of Next-Gen Honda City which might carry the same 1.5-Liter i-DTEC engine or the original 1.6-liter i-DTEC diesel engine.
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Source: Economic Times
Arghya Pan
