Planning to buy Honda City or Amaze? Get ready for price hike in September

Honda Cars will increase the prices of its two existing models on sale in India. The Honda City sedan, which was launched earlier this year, and the Amaze sub-compact model will become costlier from next month, just ahead of the upcoming festive season. According to the carmaker, the Japanese auto giant has been forced to hike the prices to mitigate rising costs to manufacture these two models. Incidentally, Honda currently sells only these two sedans in India.

Honda launched the facelift version of the fifth generation City sedan in March this year at a starting price of ₹11.49 lakh which went up to ₹20.39 lakh (ex-showroom) for the e:HEV hybrid version. The current starting price of the City is at ₹11.57 lakh (ex-showroom). On the other hand, the price of the Amaze sub-compact sedan starts from ₹7.05 lakh (ex-showroom).

Honda Cars has not revealed how big the hike will be. According to reports, the Japanese carmaker is still deliberating on the quantum of the price hike. Kunal Behl, Vice President (Sales and Marketing) at Honda Cars, said, "We have been trying to absorb accumulated cost pressures as much as possible. We will carry out a price revision on City and Amaze from September to partially offset the impact of increasing input costs." Honda Cars India Vice President (Sales and Marketing) Kunal Behl told PTI.

Under the hood, Honda has ditched its popular 1.5-litre diesel unit to adhere to stricter BS6 phase 2 emission norms. The sedan comes with a 1.5-litre petrol engine which is now compatible with E20 ethanol-blend fuel. It can churn out 121 hp of maximum power and 145 Nm of peak torque. The engine is mated to either a 6-speed manual or a CVT gearbox. The 1.5-litre Atkinson cycle hybrid engine can churn out 126 hp of power and 256 Nm of peak torque. The engine comes mated to an e-CVT gearbox.

Watch: Honda City facelift 2023: First drive review

Honda Amaze recently completed 10 years in India. The sub-compact sedan, rival to Maruti Dzire and Hyundai Aura, has found 5.3 lakh homes across India during this period. The sedan comes powered with a 1.2-litre i-VTEC naturally-aspirated petrol engine and is mated to a five-speed manual transmission as well as CVT gearbox. The engine can churn out 89 bhp of maximum power and 110 Nm of peak torque.