While many of you think that the Indian automobile market is the only interesting space to manufacturers as of now, the real story is that global majors are taking emerging markets as seriously as they are taking ours.
Honda is reportedly testing its entry level hatchback Honda Brio with a diesel engine for the Indian market. And it is also gearing up for the launch of the Brio in Brazil. Now Brazil is an emerging market like India and the demand for value for money cars is high over there. Talking about the products existing in Brazil, we have Toyota Etios and Volkswagen Gol (not Volkswagen Golf) that are doing well. Beside these two upcoming cars include the Hyundai HB20 (a Hyundai i20 Parallel model designed specifically for the Brazil market) and the soon to be launched Volkswagen Up.
The car will not be imported as CKD units and instead will be manufactured locally at the company’s facility in Sao Paulo. Once the production commences, the Sao Paulo plant will be the third destination in the world to manufacture the Brio. The same plant currently produces Honda City and in order to make room for the Brio, the company will shift a significant portion of City’s production to its other plant located in Argentina.
Currently the Sao Paulo plant produces 620 units daily which the company wishes to extend to 700 units once the Brio enters the assembly line where it will produced alongside Honda Fit (Honda Jazz in India).
Developed in Thailand, the Brio was specifically designed for emerging markets but thanks to numerous good qualities the car has, it is not confined to a limited number of markets now and in the near future Honda will launch the same is other global markets as well.
As has been the case in Brazil for years now that engines are designed to run on both petrol and ethanol, Honda will have to make changes to the 1.2 litre petrol unit in order to make it compatible with ethanol. Apart form this the company will have to consider increasing the boot space and also offer an automatic transmission variant.
We have our eyes on the Brio’s Brazil launch. Stay tuned for more updates on the same.
Source – Car.Blog.Br
