Honda Cars India Limited (HCIL) will start delivering the new City Hybrid to its customers in May this year, informed sources. The booking for the same has already started and the cars are currently in different phases of transit from its facility in Rajasthan to the dealers across the country.
The City e:HEV, is a hybrid version of the recently launched 5th generation City 2022 and comes as the top, ZX variant.
It uses two motors, a petrol and an electric motor to power the wheels in three different types of driving modes. The electric motor (EV) drive using the battery is for the city driving, the hybrid drive mode is for strong acceleration performance driving where the petrol engine acts as an electric generator and the motor drives the wheels. And the third mode is engine drive which uses the traditional petrol engine to drive the wheels.
Not only this, but the car uses the energy regeneration technique while decelerating as well.
It claims a fuel efficiency of 26.5 kmpl. And as far as the performance is concerned, the motor churns out a maximum torque of 253Nm.
The City e:HEV hybrid variant comes with quite a few new features including the Collision Mitigation Braking System (CMBS) which provides an advanced warning and applies brakes automatically where risk of collision is imminent. The car also comes with Lane Keep Assist System, an adaptive cruise control and an automatic high beam sensing.
While the price of the car has officially not been revealed yet, the tentative ex-showroom price, as per the sources, is expected to be around Rs 17 Lakh.
The HCIL’s corporate office is based in Greater Noida, UP and its state-of-the-art manufacturing facility is located at Tapukara, District. Alwar, Rajasthan.
While the hybrid technology has been introduced for the first time for City, it is not new for Honda. The Japanese car maker has used it earlier in Accord.