Ahead of the 2012 Geneva Motor Show that will happen very soon, there has been fresh speculation about Honda launching a diesel variant of its flagship City sedan in the Indian market, as early as this year. We got very interested in this seemingly big development and immediately got in touch with a top Honda official to confirm this story. Yet again, the Honda diesel bubble stands pricked as the Honda official clearly told us that Honda SIEL Cars India(HSCI) has no plans whatsoever of launching the diesel variant of the Honda City sedan in 2012. Therefore, the rumors of a City Diesel being launched in 2012 remain just that, mere rumors.
We also have gathered that Honda has no plans of launching any diesel engine car in India during 2012 from the HSCI official we got in touch with, consonant with the previous report we carried a few weeks ago. Meanwhile, it seems like the Civic Diesel too will take some time to arrive onto the Indian car market. Honda is the only mass market carmaker in India to not have even a single diesel engined variant in its portfolio and this hasn’t done the brand any good at the hustings, even as the Indian car market has shown a dramatic shift in preference towards diesel cars over the past few years. Honda though, does have plans of launching diesel engined cars in the future and a brand new line of diesel engines are being developed by Honda engineers.
In fact, Honda has deputed ex-Formula1 engineers on the job and the first diesel engine to emerge from this operation is the recently unveiled 1.6 Liter i-DTEC turbo diesel unit, which generates 120 Bhp of peak power and a superb peak torque output of 300 Nm. This engine will debut on the 2012 Honda Civic sedan. Honda is also said to be developing smaller, downsized variants of the 1.6 Liter i-DTEC engine which may power cars like the Jazz and Brio hatchbacks in the future. There is also some buzz about Honda unveiling another small capacity engine at the fast approaching 2012 Geneva Motor Show, which is said to be one of the most prestigious amongst auto shows. Watch this space.
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