The 2014 Honda City was launched recently and it has been very well received in the Indian market. Honda has loaded the City with basic features along with ABS and two airbags. The Japanese automaker has now launched the City in Thailand and even though the base vehicle remains the same, there are many significant features that are available in the Thailand version of the vehicle but omitted in the Indian version. Not just Honda, almost all manufacturers do this and the main reason for omitting features is cost-cutting.
The Honda City Thailand version comes with two airbags as standard but the company also provides six airbags as optional with the vehicle. The base variant of the Indian City is a bare-bones version but the Thailand version comes with many safety features such as ABS, VSA stability control, Hill Start Assist and Emergency Stop Signal as standard. Additional side airbags and seat airbags are offered as an option on the V+ and SV+ variants. These variants also come with a multi-angle rear view camera which features a three-level adjustment. The top spec variant also gets wider and bigger tyres, 185/55/16 instead of 175/65/15.
The Honda City Thai version is priced between 5,50,000 baht to 7,49,000 baht which translates to Rs. 10.38-14.14 lakhs. The City in India is priced significantly lower than this amount and hence it is justified on Honda’s part as to why these features have been omitted. Even if the manufacturer had included all the above features and launched the City at a higher price, then they would have surely killed the product since it competes with the Hyundai Verna which sells because of its value for money quotient. Hence, Honda priced the City appropriately after deleting these features and avoided a pricing blunder like they did with the Jazz. The Honda City is priced between Rs. 7.42-11.10 lakhs (ex-showroom, Delhi).
