The Honda crossover Vezel has been christened the ‘HR-V’ for the American markets. The Jazz-based compact crossover was launched in Japan last December with Honda offering the petrol as well as hybrid versions for the domestic market.
In the US though, the car will only be offered with gasoline drivetrain and the diesel variant (possibly the 1.5-liter turbo of Acura ILX sedan) will be making an appearance sometime during the latter half of the year according to Autonetmagz.com. The Americans, for now, won’t get their hands on any hybrid HR-V. Don’t think they would miss it, anyway.
Honda will be assembling the HR-V at their 200,000 units-per-annum plant based in Mexico. This brand new Honda facility in Celaya opened last month and is producing cars for the U.S. as well as Central and South American markets.
In the U.S., the front-wheel or all-wheel-drive Honda HR-V will be wrestling with other small utility vehicles including the Mazda CX-5, Nissan Juke and Subaru XV Crosstrek.
For India unfortunately, as confirmed earlier, the Vezel won’t be tackling any of our potholes in the near future. Honda cleared that Vezel is not destined for India as it doesn’t fit in the price spectrum they intend to sell a compact SUV in our markets. In place, however, we will have another compact SUV that’s based on the hatchback Brio.
A hint of it is what we got at the Auto Expo when Honda unveiled the XS-1 Concept. However, in an exclusive interview with MotorBash, Honda’s head Jnaneshwar Sen said that XS-1 is a study model and doesn’t have anything to do with the Brio-based compact SUV that we will get. (Read the interview here)
Study model be it, but we are sure there are certain hints of what India will get otherwise there was not reason of a concept model being world premiered in India. Nonetheless, Honda Vezel aka HR-V is extremely desirable and we would really want to see it being sold in India some years down the line! Do you, as well..?
