Honda midsize SUV is expected to have several commonalities with the City midsize sedan and it could be equipped with a strong hybrid petrol engine as well
Honda Cars India will step into the highly competitive and popular midsize SUV segment in the 2023 calendar year. The upcoming five-seater SUV will compete against Hyundai Creta, Kia Seltos, MG Astor, Volkswagen Taigun, Skoda Kushaq and the likes. It will have an overall length of around 4.2 metres and could take its design inspiration from the RS SUV concept.
The RS SUV concept recently spawned the new generation WR-V in Indonesia. Expected to go on sale in April 2023, the Honda midsize SUV will more likely have several commonalities with the City midsize sedan. It is expected to derive power from a 1.5-litre four-cylinder naturally aspirated petrol engine and the 1.5-litre strong hybrid petrol engine found in the City.
With stringent emission standards coming into effect from April 2023, the Japanese manufacturer will stop manufacturing its diesel engine from February 2023. Internally codenamed 3RA, it will likely boast a new electronic architecture and screen system, and thus a large touchscreen infotainment system with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto compatibility will be available.
The City Hybrid’s e:HEV system will certainly help in competing firmly against midsize SUVs like Maruti Suzuki Grand Vitara and Toyota Urban Cruiser Hyryder and to carry competitive pricing, it could be heavily localised. The equipment list could comprise six airbags, wireless smartphone charging, automatic climate control, cruise control, and steering wheel with mounted controls.
It will be interesting to see if Honda Sensing suite of driver assistive and safety technologies such as autonomous emergency braking, adaptive cruise control, automatic high beam assist, lane departure warning, lane keep assist, rear-cross traffic alert, etc will be offered or not. Honda currently has the City and Amaze as its top selling models in India.
To garner more volumes in the future, having a presence in the midsize SUV segment will immensely help and aggressively positioning the model will be vital. Reports suggest that the six- and seven-seater iterations of the midsize SUV could be considered for launch in the coming years.