)
The next small car from the Honda stable will come out of an India development centre.
The compact car will be developed on a new platform designed and developed by the research & development (R&D) team based in India. An official said work on the car had already started, adding the car would hit the roads in three years. As the car will be fully localised, it could be priced attractively.
For Honda, the new product will mark a quantum leap. Until the launch of compact hatchback Brio, Honda saw little local participation in manufacturing. The Brio, the company’s smallest car in the Indian market, has been developed in Japan but is produced in India.
Honda wants to lay greater emphasis on its India development programme, as it seeks to reduce currency exchange fluctuation risks that hit profitability and force it to raise prices at regular intervals.
Yoshiyuki Matsumoto, managing officer representing development, purchase and production at Honda Motor Company and the executive who oversees research and development operations, said, “The importance of the Indian market is very high. Globally, Honda had been focused on the American market and products had been developed according to American requirements. But as far as the future is concerned, as we are targeting half the global market — the emerging markets. Within Asia, India is one of the most important markets. We are focusing on developing products based on the needs here, developing these locally to meet the requirements of customers from a cost perspective, and giving products rapidly to the market.”
He declined to specify whether the new small car would be positioned below the Brio, saying “it is still to be finalised”.
For Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India, which accounts for the second-highest sales of two-wheelers here, India is the biggest market globally. For Honda, the importance of India was on similar lines, he said.
To develop the new small car, Honda will have to strengthen its R&D team; currently, its role is limited to localising components for vehicles. “The responsibility of the India R&D team will be much more on account of the costs, which would be very stringent. For that, we have to carry out the development locally; we have to enhance localisation. Also, because of foreign exchange, we have to have more and more localisation. That’s why the responsibility is much higher.”
To address demand in emerging markets, the company has planned to bring out more products from India. “It’s already planned the development will be done in India. In the future, we will see the products are developed in India,” he said.
Honda’s Amaze and Mobilio were developed at its technical centre in Thailand. The company is working on alternate fuel engines for India.
