Honda City 2020 to be exported from India to left-hand drive markets

Honda Cars India on Thursday announced it will export City 2020 from here to more than 12 countries which have a left-lane drive system. In what is a first for the carmaker in India, the left-hand drive models will be manufactured at its Rajasthan plant and will make way to Pipavav port in Gujarat and Ennore port in Chennai for markets abroad.

The first batch of the left-hand drive fifth-generation Honda City will make way to countries in West Asia as the car maker is eventually looking at a three-fold increase in export volumes from India. The car maker is also underlining that this shows its commitment towards the Indian government's 'Make in India' initiative. "Honda City has been the benchmark of sedans in India and addition of exports of its Left Hand Drive model to completely new destinations is a great opportunity for us to strengthen our India business,"said Gaku Nakanishi, President & CEO, Honda Cars India. "We have invested in creating an expansive world-class manufacturing facility at Tapukara which can produce both right hand and left hand drive models that allows us to manage demand for domestic and international consumers."

Honda has already been exporting the latest City to neighbouring countries of Nepal and Bhutan, as well as to South Africa. Additionally, the Amaze and WR-V are also exported to these countries.

City 2020 is now the most premium offering from Honda in India after the company decided to stop selling CR-V and Civic here. As such, it is betting big on the sedan to pave the way ahead and recently highlighted cumulative sales of 21,826 units between January and December of last year. (Full report here)

Offered with a new 1.5L i-VTEC DOHC engine with VTC in petrol and a more refined 1.5L i-DTEC diesel engine, the new City is also the longest and widest among its direct rivals.