[RaghuVis]

Originally Posted by shan.sundram

Indian car market has already lost Ford known for its drivability and build quality (GM too) and it is we as car buyers who will determine whether the market will continue to offer safe and reliable cars or if we want only fanciful cars. For me, it's my head over my heart!

This is taking a little bit off-topic but I feel this needs to be called out.

I do not agree at all with the above statement. We need to stop blaming the public for the failure of these OEMs. We have numerous threads here highlighting the failures of Ford and GM. They failed and they folded out. Don't put it on the common man.

We have millions of Hyundai/MSIL cars on the road. If we take the percentage of cars with reliability problems among them, they would have the best ratio favoring them. Most features that you call fancy are given by Honda globally. They don't give it to Indians because they think we do not deserve them. Plain and Simple.

I do not think anyone will buy ELEVATE because they want HONDA to survive.

PS: When you say Head over heart, it does look like you are doing a compromise and not living your life how you really want to live . You just want to play safe. Fortunately many don't think like that!

[Samegoodkid]

This thread is alive and how? Always nice to see a bit of traction on the Honda threads.

As a Honda fan, I believe the Elevate won’t neither be a smashing hit nor be a dud.
It would help sell just enough ( extra) that would keep Honda afloat and plan better for their subsequent launches. The bigger question is whether those numbers come at the expense of city.

One of their previous attempts (BR-V) should have tasted success but for Honda pricing and lack of enough push.

I hope Honda doesn’t do the same mistake & prices the Elevate sensibly.

Fingers crossed.

[GuChDa]

Originally Posted by TribalRoar

If they are sniffing at opportunities to maximize profits by gauging interest, as we suspect they are, it would just reek of rank arrogance on their part considering the competition. Price it at the speculated 12L plus to 18L plus and the Elevate is toast. Honda will leave india and there will be many BHPians who will gladly drive them to the airport.

I happened to speak with one of the top reviewer who had driven the CVT (while we wait for the Team BHP opinion on the CVT version), he has the following points to convey very strongly.

1. Purely a City car and occasional highway with very relaxed driving style.
2. When partially loaded on highways and importantly on climbs/inclines this power plant with CVT struggles a lot. He mentioned that rubber band effect is much pronounced in Elevate than city.
3. NVH beyond 2500 rpm onwards is more gruff and stresfull and thats where it would operate mostly beyond city limits. For MT he said for over taking you need to downshift by atleast 2 or more gears (to 3rd).
4. FE with 2 people on flat surface City about 10, and highways it is 14 to 15 when partially loaded.
5. Ride and handling good for such elevated Elevate.

He too felt that Elevate deserves hybrid much more than city and it's not the missing features which is a real miss.

Honda seems to know this too well, to call Elevate 'Urban Freestyler'.

[greyhound82]

Originally Posted by epiccross

Out of interest, with zero radar and pure camera based ADAS, would the ADAS work where visibility is poor? Because XUV700 ADAS for instance seems to work reasonably when in dense fog. That's a huge plus in my books and a valid usecase for ADAS here in India.

Performance of visible camera deteriorates in fog. Some pre-processing methods like defogging and de-hazing can be done but still on ground we found fog creates lot of false warning. Both object detection and depth map computation is going to suffer

Thermal(IR) imaging works better in fog and even in Radars, mostly 25 - 80 GHz is used for ADAS

[Durango Dude]

Originally Posted by GuChDa

4. FE with 2 people on flat surface City about 10, and highways it is 14 to 15 when partially loaded.

What the reviewer has mentioned is what I get with my Honda City CVT. Elevate will return 6-7 kmpl in the city and 10-11 kmpl on the highway: taking into consideration it's increased weight and brick like aero. Problem is Elevate neither offers spirited performance nor fuel efficiency which is a double whammy that can only be overcome by a mouth watering "deep discounted" price at launch. The reviewer mentioned FE is attainable only if you drive like a saint at 80kmph on the highway and don't encounter traffic in the city in the Elevate.

[GuChDa]

Originally Posted by Durango Dude

What the reviewer has mentioned is what I get with my Honda City CVT. Elevate will return 6-7 kmpl in the city and 10-11 kmpl on the highway: taking into consideration it's increased weight and brick like aero. Problem is Elevate neither offers spirited performance nor fuel efficiency which is a double whammy that can only be overcome by a mouth watering "deep discounted" price at launch. The reviewer mentioned FE is attainable only if you drive like a saint at 80kmph on the highway and don't encounter traffic in the city in the Elevate.

Well thanks for that concurrence broadly. In fact my contact was stressing by using the words 'Partially loaded', 'Flat surface', relaxed driving ' etc.. for that best figures of city /Highway as 10/14 kmpl.

He did mention that anything agrresive the FE will fall. He also observed that engine vocals have changed now (more gruff like) while earlier it was something good on the ears. Can't say what Honda did.

However, the mileage you have mentioned is truly scary for 20 lakh return on investment (He mentioned that according to Honda scheme of things Elevate is one segment higher than City and would be priced keeping that in mind. For Honda, Creta is the benchmark not Seltos)

I am rather surprised! yet Honda has so much fan following in support (looking at Global vs India differential treatment) More reality and practical responses would come as soon as prices are revealed followed by early adopters feedback.

Toll then I should sit and lay back.

[mayjay]

Originally Posted by Durango Dude

What the reviewer has mentioned is what I get with my Honda City CVT. Elevate will return 6-7 kmpl in the city and 10-11 kmpl on the highway: taking into consideration it's increased weight and brick like aero. Problem is Elevate neither offers spirited performance nor fuel efficiency which is a double whammy that can only be overcome by a mouth watering "deep discounted" price at launch. The reviewer mentioned FE is attainable only if you drive like a saint at 80kmph on the highway and don't encounter traffic in the city in the Elevate.

Is that kind of lower mileage (10 kmpl) typical for the CVT? My 14 year old Gen3 gets that kind of city mileage - it mostly is used for short city runs now so doesn’t even get a chance to warm up properly.
If I recall, for the last couple of generations Honda has highlighted higher mileage for the CVT as compared to the manual. Does that not bear out in real world conditions?

[07CR]

Originally Posted by Durango Dude

What the reviewer has mentioned is what I get with my Honda City CVT. Elevate will return 6-7 kmpl in the city and 10-11 kmpl on the highway: taking into consideration it's increased weight and brick like aero. Problem is Elevate neither offers spirited performance nor fuel efficiency which is a double whammy that can only be overcome by a mouth watering "deep discounted" price at launch. The reviewer mentioned FE is attainable only if you drive like a saint at 80kmph on the highway and don't encounter traffic in the city in the Elevate.

Originally Posted by GuChDa

1. Purely a City car and occasional highway with very relaxed driving style.
2. When partially loaded on highways and importantly on climbs/inclines this power plant with CVT struggles a lot. He mentioned that rubber band effect is much pronounced in Elevate than city.
3. NVH beyond 2500 rpm onwards is more gruff and stresfull and thats where it would operate mostly beyond city limits. For MT he said for over taking you need to downshift by atleast 2 or more gears (to 3rd).
4. FE with 2 people on flat surface City about 10, and highways it is 14 to 15 when partially loaded.

Originally Posted by GuChDa

He mentioned that according to Honda scheme of things Elevate is one segment higher than City and would be priced keeping that in mind. For Honda, Creta is the benchmark not Seltos

I felt the City CVT performance to be good. Be it city or highway. It bogged down on the hills , but other than that I was satisfied.

Elevate here is about 100-150 kgs heavier than City.
It loses the aerodynamics with that brick like design.
It also has wider and bigger tyres.

This would result in even inferior fuel efficiency (reflected in segment lowest ARAI figures). Performance too would take a hit and would be interesting to see how much the Elevate lags compared to Hyundai/Kia's 1.5 NA. On top of this despite all limitations, Honda wants to price this at a premium to City. You got to be kidding me.

[Paritoshkalra]

Originally Posted by 07CR

I felt the City CVT performance to be good. Be it city or highway. It bogged down on the hills , but other than that I was satisfied.

Elevate here is about 100-150 kgs heavier than City.
It loses the aerodynamics with that brick like design.
It also has wider and bigger tyres.

This would result in even inferior fuel efficiency (reflected in segment lowest ARAI figures). Performance too would take a hit and would be interesting to see how much the Elevate lags compared to Hyundai/Kia's 1.5 NA. On top of this despite all limitations, Honda wants to price this at a premium to City. You got to be kidding me.

They are observing all the perspective buyers and doing a survey till now. Hence the pricing is still not out. Every one of us are sure about this that if this car is overpriced, it is doomed to fail (like MG ASTOR)!

In reality, this car cannot compete Cretas and Seltos in any area. Honda has to price this car lower than overpriced Brezza. (9.99 to 14.5 lakh ex-showroom)

[pannags]

Originally Posted by inwester

A hybrid variant typically cost around $1,000 - $2,000 (USD) over the comparable petrol engine variants.

For ADAS, you can buy Comma Openpilot for around $1,250. Plus add in the cost of whatever setup it's needed for that.

I do not think it's 10x. It's only in India that they overprice this hybrid stuff for whatever reason.

Originally Posted by GuChDa

Very correct. In India due to taxation at 43% for Hybrids instead of 28% the added tax component due to higher taxation for hybrid at the most would have costed 50K.

Generally speaking, ADAS includes adaptive cruise control, lane-keeping assist, automated emergency braking etc. Complexity and number of features have a direct bearing on the cost. Honda has packaged ADAS quite smartly sticking to the basics, keeping level-2 capabilities as the baseline.

On the other hand, building a hybrid transmission system involves significant engineering work owing to the complexity of integrating electric and internal combustion powertrains. The sheer magnitude of this mechatronic system makes it complex and expensive.

Given that Honda's eHEV is an imported system with motors, batteries and power control unit coming from Japan, there is obviously a higher impact on the cost.

[Reinhard]

Originally Posted by GTO

Was asked by one of them what I would buy. I said Seltos 1.5L Turbo for the engine & driving pleasure, or I'd stretch my spend to the XUV700. But driving pleasure / power isn't a priority for either of them.

Didn't recommend the Kushaq / Virtus as these are close acquaintances and if their DSG breaks down or the dealership harasses them, they will curse me & call me everyday for a solution. Hector is too big & too old, while the Creta's design is way too polarizing.

I think these 2 paragraphs sum up the entire discussion point. We may as well freeze the thread here .

I'm sure this resonates with a lot of people/members. Anyone asks me for a recommendation - I never actually recommend them to get a Tata (while I keep on buying them) or a VW either! I value the relationship with these people too much to gamble with, haha! But today if I was out shopping for a car for myself - absolutely regardless of my budget - I'd do whatever I can to buy the new Seltos. Sell organs even. I am damn sure about it. Thats the one I'd recommend to anyone for all practical purposes as well as fun in fact. What a job by KIA there.

As for the Elevate - except for the very polarizing grille - I liked everything about the car. I'm in fact extremely happy that it is not unnecessarily loaded with features and seems to carry the reliability DNA of the Honda badge, because it pretty much reuses the key components from the City. It isn't overengineered and keeps points of failures also minimized. Gets the basics of ride+handling+cabin feel spot on by the looks of it - and thats what actually matters.

Its just sad that they have completely omitted WOW features like 360deg camera, seat ventilation and also the important central ELR type seat belt in the rear seat. I really feel they should have put in a ZX+ variant - with everything under the Sun, and maybe priced it out of everyone's reach as well, just to pull people to the showrooms. Keep the V/ZX as the target variants for aggressive and bulk volumes.

I feel Honda should have seen -

1. For an XUV7OO/ScorpioN - its the Lux+AWD model that pulls people to the showrooms, while many buy a mid trim. Buy a car without these features on the brochure and you are guaranteed to be asked "Why didn't you buy Seltos? It has so much more?" at least 5 times a day for next 6 months. By people - who often don't really know much about either cars.
2. For a CRETA / SELTOS - its the top of the line Turbo petrol DCT/XLine trims that pull customers to the showrooms, but the bulk of the sales is from 1.5NA iVT/iMT or diesel trims like SX/HTK+/HTX/GTX etc.

In today's market - having the bling with multi-page confusing feature list, works a lot in favour of the product.
Don't have the option at all - and you are simply pointing customers to the showroom next door. And they often are literally next door along the highways now a days.

If Honda prices it well - I really hope this one works. Its a very neutral, balanced and practical car. It has what everyone really needs for real world use. And if it fails - I fear for Honda's future in India as well.

[Latheesh]

Mileage reference. This is what I managed in my 5th gen City manual during 667 km drive recently (solo, relaxed - max speed was 100-110, mix of all road types). Reduce all these factors and "brick" factor and you will get the figure for Elevate.

My guess for Elevate: 9-10 kmpl in city and 16-18 kmpl highway figures.

[pannags]

Ceremonial start to the production of the Honda Elevate

https://youtu.be/7k2227UlP74

[headbanger]

I just feel Honda as a brand has changed what it thinks to deliver in India and that's showing in the product line up including the new Elevate.

From an aspirational brand having City, Civic, Accord, CRV in yesteryears to Mobilio, Brio, BRV, Amaze and a lesser quality City just reeks this change. Elevate is just an addition to this list and chances of its success will also be similar as the list itself.

[inwester]

Originally Posted by Latheesh

My guess for Elevate: 9-10 kmpl in city and 16-18 kmpl highway figures.

This is exactly what I get with 5th generation City CVT (and that too sparsely loaded). I would think Elevate is a good 1-2 kmpl lower (for the CVT version).

This thing isn't going to be the fuel efficiency champ (or for that matter the power champ, nor the features champ).

In an ideal world, I would've loved to get rid of the City and got myself a crossover. I do not see a single reason for me to buy the Elevate, objectively, unless it's priced 1-2 lakhs lower than the NA competition, which we know it most likely won't be. To each their own.