The compact SUV segment is one that none of the manufacturers want to miss out on, and they cannot afford to ignore this segment too as it is officially the fastest growing segment and contributes greatly towards the overall sales and in turn growth of a manufacturer. French car manufacturer Renault is surviving only because of the sales of the Duster and Ford is enjoying the top position in this segment right now, thanks to the Ford Ecosport.
Honda Brio-based compact SUV (speculated rendering)
So it is now clear that to be successful, a manufacturer will need to have a compact SUV in its product portfolio. Japanese automobile manufacturer Honda recently trumped Mahindra and Mahindra to take the third place among the largest car manufacturers in India and is just behind Maruti Suzuki and Hyundai and the competition is only going to get tougher as we go, because Both Maruti Suzuki and Hyundai are aware of the advantages of having a compact SUV in their portfolio and are already working on it.
Hyundai has almost finished testing the ix25 compact SUV for the Indian market and will be launching it soon and Maruti Suzuki is developing the XA alpha compact SUV and these two can prove to be almost disastrous for Honda and they are well aware of it too. In order to bounce back, Honda has decided to launch a compact SUV of their own.
Honda Vezel is not coming to India!
Honda had earlier planned to launch the Vezel/HR-V in India, but it didn’t turn out to be feasible for them to re-engineer it for the Indian market and the engineers at Honda thought it would be easier to develop an all new compact SUV specifically for the Indian market based on the Brio platform. The Brio platform already hosts the Brio, Amaze and Mobilio and has proved to be versatile enough to handle a compact SUV too.
This compact SUV project from Honda might take a little longer than expected as it has to be developed from scratch, but we can expect to see a concept of the SUV at the 2016 Indian Auto Expo.
To read ,more on Honda India, Click here
Also see – India will not get Honda Vezel, instead mulls a Brio-based compact SUV
Source – Economic Times
Image credit – CarSensor.net (via Mag-X)
