Indian Cars, Bikes

Honda Jazz

Honda has preponed the launch of its compact car Jazz by six months to increase its market share in the Indian market.

Jazz, the smallest car from Honda’s bandwagon, will hit the Indian market in June-July next year and sport a specially designed 1.2 litre petrol engine for the Indian market. The car will roll out from its Greater Noida factory while the critical components and sheet metal body panels will be manufactured at its Rs 600 crore new factory at Tapukara in Rajasthan, which was inaugurated on Friday.

This new facility will also emerge as Honda’s main manufacturing base and produce its future cars, including the second small car slated to hit India in the next four years. HSCI president and CEO M Takedagawa said: “To have a significant presence in the Indian small-car market, we would launch two small cars within the next four years. First the Jazz which will be followed by another small car, currently under planning stage. We are looking at garnering a major market share in premium compact cars and the new factory will provide the much-needed technological support to our long-term plans.”

The company has also set up an R&D centre at the Rajasthan plant, which will provide critical support for the development of new cars and components keeping in view the Indian market. With the second plant coming into stream, operations of HSCI—a joint venture between Honda Motor Company and Shriram Group of Companies—will integrate into Honda’s pan-Asian supply chain network.

Honda Motor Co president and CEO Takeo Fukui said: “This plant will be used to export certain Indian-made components to our Asian subsidiaries. We will effectively utilise the Indo-ASEAN FTA starting next year to increase the supply of components among our various subsidiaries. We will be exporting powertrain parts from India to our Asian plants.”