Days before Honda unveils the all-new City Hybrid in the Indian market, the brand has released the first-ever teaser image of the car. Honda shared the rear badges of the City that gets “e:HEV” moniker alongside the ZX trim logo. The new teaser image also indicates that Honda will bring the new City hybrid in standard non RS variants as well.
Honda City e:HEV
The new Honda City e:HEV will be based on the top-end trim of the car. It will look exactly the same as the standard City but there will be substantial changes under the hood of the sedan.
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The Honda City Hybrid will come with blacked-out highlights on the outside and an all-black cabin on the inside. The comfort and convenience features in the City Hybrid will be retained from the current top-spec ZX variant of the City. The India-spec version may also get the ADAS features available in the Thailand-spec version, including features such as adaptive cruise control, lane departure mitigation system with lane departure warning, collision mitigation braking, automatic high beam, and lane-keep assist.
Step inside the cabin, and you will find that the Honda City Hybrid has an all-black cabin with contrast silver touches, unlike the dual-tone black and beige cabin layout with piano black and faux wood finish in the current trims of City sold in India.
Gets two electric motors
Unlike the 1.5-litre naturally-aspirated petrol engine in the current petrol-powered variants of the City, the Honda City Hybrid will get a combination of a 1.5-litre four-cylinder Atkinson petrol engine, two electric motors and a battery.
The petrol engine is capable of producing 98 PS of maximum power and 127 Nm of peak torque output. This engine powers the front wheels through a CVT gearbox.
Among the two electric motors on offer, one will drive the front wheels of the City Hybrid through a unique single-speed gearbox, and the second motor acts as an integrated starter generator. The electric motor propelling the front wheels is good enough to pump out 109 PS of power output and 253 Nm of torque.
This entire powertrain can be operated in three different drive modes – petrol-only mode, petrol-electric hybrid mode and electric-only mode. While in the petrol-only mode, only the 1.5-litre petrol engine will serve as the powerhouse, while in the electric-only mode, the power will come from the battery and motor combination, which will give the car a limited range from the charge remaining in the battery.