The Honda Civic will make a comeback in the Indian market after a five-year hiatus. Does it have what it takes to take a very competit🌜ive segment by storm? The Civic will be back fighting against familiar names like the Toyota Corolla Altis, the Skoda Octavia and the Hyundai Elantra. Here’s how they compare, on paper.
Price
*all prices ex-showroom Delhi
The Honda Civic is expected to be priced at a premium in the segment, considering it's being assembled here from CKD kits rather than being manufactured here from the ground up. Will it be able to justify its price? 🌳Let’s take a look at what it has to offer.
Features
Honda Civic:
Hits - 7-inch colour MID, remote engine start (for cooling the car do🦄wn on a hot day, presumably), lane-watch camera, multi-angle rearview💞 camera.
Segment standards - 8-way electrically adjustable driver seat, dual-zone aut𝓡omatic climate 🍷control, sunroof, six airbags, 7-inch touchscreen infotainment system.
Skoda Octavia:
Hits - digital instrument cluster, eight airbags, traction control, tyre pressure monitoring system, front and rear parking sensors, panoramic sunroof, 12-way electrically adjustable driver and passenger seats, 10-speaker surround sound system.
Segment standards - 8-inc🐎h touchscreen infotainment system, dual-zone climate control.
Hyundai Elantra:
Hits - wireless phone charging, traction control.
Segment stan🐽dards - 𝓀Six airbags, 10-way electrically adjustable driver seat, dual-zone climate control.
Toyota Corolla Altis:
Hits - Paddle shifters, vehicle stability contro♛l.
Segment standards - seven🍰 airbags, 10-way electrically adjustable driver seat, rear parking sensors and rear camera, fully automatic ﷽air conditioning and six speakers.
On the face of it, the Civic does not seem to have a huge advantage over the competition in terms of features on offer. Maybe the quality would be en♉ough to justify the expected premium pricing, but, we will have to wait and see.
Dimensions
The Skoda Octavia 🌺has the biggest exterior dimensions of all the cars here - be it in terms of overall length, width or height. It also has the biggest boot in this comparison.
But the Civic, along with the Elantra and the Altis, h🍸as a slightly longer wheelbase. Considering how adept Honda has been in the past, packaging its cars to make the most of the space available, we can expect the Civic to be spacious on the inside for four to five occupants.
If it wants to impress ༒the rear-seat passengers, it will🗹 have tough competition from the Corolla Altis which won the rear seat battle in our real-world comparison test.
Diesel Powertrain
Yes, the all-new Honda Civic will be offered with a diesel e🐈ngine, even though the demand for diesel-powered cars is expected to drop significantly in 2020▨.
While the on-paper performance figures are respectable (the Skoda Octavia takes the crown here), it is the claimed fuel-efficiency figure which has us rubbing our eyes. The claimed efಌficiency number of the Civic is almost 20 per cent more than the second most efficient car here (which is the Elantra, BTW).
Honda m💝ay face some flak from buyers🐓 for not offering an automatic transmission with what, on paper at least, seems to be a very efficient motor.
Petrol Powertrain
It is a similar story if you compare the petrol-powered variants of the cars here. The Civic is not too hot in terms o🌜f performance - in fact, it is just 1PS/1Nm short of being the least powerful/torquey car here!
Honda has done just the opposite for the petrol variant(s), pairing it exclusively with a CVT automatic unit. This variant is more efficient than other automatic petrol cars in the segment, but it looks like a manual variant may have been even more efficient than the segment leader, Skoda⭕ Octavia.
Which of these cars would you choose if you were in the market for ༒a sub-Rs 30 l𓄧akh sedan? Let us know in the comments below.
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