New Honda City Hybrid e:HEV TVC Out, India Launch in Offing

Just in August, Honda shed the veils off a new hybrid iteration of the new-gen City sedan to the auto enthusiasts. Now, the Japanese carmaker has launched this vehicle in Southeast markets like Thailand. Named the Honda City e:HEV, the hybrid sedan is priced at around 839 baht (Rs 20.42 lakh) and 100,000 baht (Rs 2.43 lakh).

From the visual standpoint, the Honda City e:HEV looks very similar to the regular petrol version. The hybrid sedan also features a set of sharp-looking LED headlamps with sporty front bumper housing LED fog lamps. The front grille is blackened out to enhance its overall cosmetic appeal. The stylish diamond-cut alloys are standing out at the side profile of the vehicle while the LED taillamps take a prominent place at the rear end of the car.

On the inside, the Honda City e:HEV boasts of a large screen for the infotainment system that acts as a display for the reverse camera and is compatible with Apple CarPlay. As the e-HEV is the new top-spec model for the City in Thailand, the sedan has been equipped with some additional features to justify the pricing. Some added goodies comprise of an electronic parking brake, steering wheel paddles, Honda Sensing tech among many others.

Certainly, the main difference between the City e:HEV and the regular petrol-powered City model lies under the hood. While the standard car is powered by a 1.0-litre 3-cylinder turbo-petrol engine, the Honda City e:HEV comes with an Intelligent Multi-mode Drive (i-MMD) hybrid powertrain that makes us of a 1.5-litre petrol engine and dual electric motors churning out 109 PS/ 253 Nm and 98 PS/ 127 Nm. Mated to a CVT option, the City e:HEV can return a fuel efficiency figure of up to 27.8 kmpl that is about 10 kmpl more efficient than the India-spec regular City petrol-CVT models.

With the introduction of the new Honda City e:HEV in Thailand, Honda has once again reaffirmed its intention towards the cleaner mobility solution. While the carmaker remains silent about the India launch of the e:HEV sedan, the carmaker has once confirmed to bring in a hybrid variant of the City in India earlier on and the Honda City e:HEV perfectly fits the bill. From this, we do expect Honda to introduce the City e:HEV in India sometime next year.