After many years of speculations, Honda has finally launched the City hybrid in India. Officially called the City e:HEV, the car will be the most expensive variant in the line-up. Honda is accepting bookings from today for the new City Hybrid at a payment of Rs 21,000. The price announcement will happen next month.
What’s new in Honda City Hybrid?
The all-new Honda City Hybrid looks identical to the standard version. While Honda was expected to bring the RS variant of the City, only the standard models will come to the market at this moment.
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The Honda City Hybrid will be available in two variants V and the ZX. But the top-end ZX trim will offer a much longer list of features compared to the standard version of the mid-size sedan.
While the City Hybrid gets the standard LED headlamps, there are additional features as well. The new City Hybrid comes with Honda Sensing Technology, which is another word for Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS). The system offers features like Collision Mitigation Braking, Adaptive Cruise Control, Lane Keep Assist, Road Departure Mitigation and Auto High Beam Assist and many more such features. The City Hybrid also gets four disc brakes. Other features like the lane-view camera are available with the model as well.
The new City Hybrid also gets an automatic brake hold, dual-tone 16-inch diamond-cut alloy wheels and a few other tweaks. The cabin gets ivory and black theme with glossy dark wood garnish on the dashboard. The instrument cluster is also new and shows information from the hybrid system.
What powers the new Honda City Hybrid?
The new Honda City Hybrid gets a new i-MMD engine. It gets a 1.5-litre four-cylinder engine that produces a maximum power of 98 PS and a peak torque of 127 Nm. The hybrid system also gets two electric motors. One of them drives the front wheels of the car and produces a maximum power of 109 PS. The torque output of the electric motor and petrol engine combined is 253 Nm. The other electric motor works mainly as a power generator.
The vehicle produces a maximum power of 126 PS combined. There is no conventional transmission in the Honda City hybrid. The Honda City returns a maximum fuel efficiency of 26.5 km/l while it can reach a top speed of 176 km/h.
Honda claims that the new City Hybrid produces a maximum power of 74 per cent more torque compared to the standard petrol City. Also, it returns 40% more fuel efficiency compared to the standard petrol version.
There are three modes in the Honda City. It can run on pure electricity, on pure petrol and the hybrid model.
The new Honda City carries a battery pack that is positioned in the rear of the car. This reduces the boot space and there is no space to keep the spare tyre. With the additional battery pack, the Honda City Hybrid is now 110 kg heavier than the standard version.