The launch of the third generation Honda Jazz has been pushed to July 2015 from March 2015, the ninth generation Accord will be launched in India in early 2016.
It’s been coming since sometime now and has been delayed yet again, we are talking about the third generation Honda Jazz which made its global debut in 2013 and was showcased at the 2014 Auto Expo, expected to go on sale in India in the same year. However, Honda stated it plans to launch the premium hatchback in March 2015 but has now pushed the launch by a few months to July. The reason for delaying the launch of the new Jazz is production constraints. Honda has been on a home run ever since the launch of its diesel powered models in India.
The Amaze, Mobilio and City are doing good numbers and the automaker is constrained with production capacity. Thus serving existing backlogs is what Honda has decided to do rather than bringing in the Jazz. This is both good and bad for several reasons. Good because prospective customers of Honda cars won’t have to wait much longer and bad because people who were looking to buy the Jazz, have to wait slightly more. The delay of the Jazz could cost Honda as by the time the vehicle is launched, Maruti Suzuki’s YRA premium hatchback would have hit the market, giving the City based hatch some tough competition.
The delay in the arrival of the Jazz is good news for Hyundai who continues to sell the Elite i20 in big numbers. In fact, the success of the Korean hatchback has led to it becoming the top selling vehicle for the company in the Indian market. The second generation Jazz was pulled off the market in March 2013 owing to poor sales. The new model is expected to do much better as it will have high local content and will be priced aggressively. It will also be the only car in the segment to get paddle shifts for the automatic variant which uses a CVT gearbox.
Honda stopped selling the Accord in India in December 2013 and will bring back the car in its ninth generation form in the first quarter of 2016. The all new Accord will also be offered in a Hybrid avatar, helping it take the fight to its biggest rival in the world, the Toyota Camry. Not a volume seller, the new Accord won’t do big numbers anyways because there won’t be any diesel version on offer. The new Accord won’t have it easy as it will have to rub shoulders with upcoming new generation models like the Hyundai Sonata, Volkswagen Passat and Skoda Superb, all of which are set to launch in the domestic market next year.
Source – Economic Times
