Honda SIEL is witnessing many car buyers preferring other brand cars because of lack of diesel engine options with Honda. Honda sells only petrol cars in India as of now. Talking of the global markets, Honda has only one Diesel Engine which is the 2.2 Litre i-CTDi engine which is fitted in Honda Accord, Honda CRV and Honda Civic in some countries. In India, we have seen recent launch of a lot of Diesel cars right from the basic hatchbacks to the premium segment cars, but Honda is missing the diesel products in all of these segments in India.
But this is going to change in the next two years with Honda coming up with a smaller capacity Diesel engine, which will be close to 1.5 Litre in displacement and about 100 BHP in power. The new diesel engine will be highly efficient and will be fitted in the next generation Honda Civic 2012.
There has been an official announcement by the Honda UK managing director David Hodgetts that the small engine is under development and will be introduced next year 2012 in Honda Civic 2012. The new engine might also be offered in Accord and Honda Jazz.
Honda Civic with smaller Diesel engine car will be most likely displayed at the Frankfurt Motor show in September 2011 and will be launched in the beginning of 2012 in Europe. We are expecting that the Diesel version of Honda Civic will hit the Indian markets by late 2012 or early 2013. Lets see if Honda has any plans for a Diesel engine for Honda City in India, because we are expecting the new engine to power the City as well. The reason behind this expectation is the popularity of Volkswagen Vento Diesel and Maruti SX4 Diesel which are already hitting on the sales of Honda City in India.
