Honda Civic will ever return to India?

Honda Civic was one of the most beloved sedan in India. It was introduced in India in 2006 and it continued to bait in customers for a long time. Sadly, it was in the late 2012 when Honda officially announced the discontinuation of the Honda Civic from the Indian car market. It was an unexpected decision which Honda made. Now, it has been almost two years since Honda announced its decision and still there is no sign that the Japanese automobile manufacturer has any plans for launching the Civic in India again.

Honda recently launched its new MPV, the Honda Mobilio, in India and its booking has already been started. Honda is focusing on the SUV and MPV segments right now as these are the segments which have been reported a tremendous growth. The Indian car market is a very fluctuating market. Previously, there was a large demand for the sedans in the country but suddenly the taste of people here has changed and now the entry level compact SUVs and MPVs are gaining a lot of attention. Perhaps, this could also be the reason why Honda decided to discontinue the Civic in India.

Honda Civic is still being sold in the European markets where it is able to do good sales figures. Honda Civic was powered by a 1.8 litre i-VTEC petrol engine which makes a total power output of 132 BHP at 6300 RPM and a peak torque of 175 Nm at 4300 RPM. It was mated to a 5 speed manual gearbox or a 5 speed automatic transmission variant in which there were paddle shifts too. That was some cool stuff at that time. Perhaps, the absence of a diesel variant of the Civic became the biggest reason for its falling demand. People started buying diesel cars because of the high petrol prices.

Honda Civic belonged to the D segment. At present, various cars which belongs to this segment are the Hyundai Elantra, Skoda Octavia, VW Jetta, Toyota Corolla, etc. Honda Civic was a tough competition for its competitors back then and if it would have still being in the race in India it would have stood up against the today’s generation cars pretty strongly. The price tag of the cars of D segment falls in the price bracket of Rs 14-28 lakhs. With this amount of money you could get a hatchback or a compact SUV from some of the well known brands of the world (Mercedes Benz & BMW). People got inclined towards them and this also caused the low demand of the D segment sedans.

By the actions of the Japanese it is quite evident that Honda is not at all interested in bringing back the Civic in the Indian car market. The company is focusing on those segments which are in demand right now. The new Honda Mobilio has made its debut in the domestic car market and Honda has very high expectations from the new MPV. It is being received by the people quite well.