New Honda Jazz to be launched in India in July 2015
Honda will launch the third gen Jazz in less than two months and will hope to finally gain the popularity and sales it missed out on over the past two years. In the previous versions, the lack of a diesel engine affected its sales and this time we expect it to be powered by the 1.5-litre i-DTEC oil burner as well as the 1.2- litre i-VTEC which already are found under the hood of the Amaze. The car is already sold around the globe as the Honda Fit but in India it gets rebadged as the Jazz.
Our executive editor, Shubhabrata Marmar had driven the car earlier in Japan and it has been a huge hit there, having sold 20 lakh units as of December 2014. The Honda design ethos has been carried down from the new Civic and Honda hopes that it will attract potential young customers.
The new Jazz will be aimed at customers looking for a premium hatchback and will have an advantage over the i20 since the Hyundai demands a long waiting period. The India-spec Jazz will differ from the European one in terms of features, but we expect the build quality to be on par with Honda's international standards.
Poor sales and customers' reluctance to spend Rs 8 lakh approximately hindered the old Jazz's sales. Honda launched a refreshed Jazz in 2011 with a reduced price tag of but it was too late as potential customers moved to newer products. However, with an increase in demand of the premium hatchback segment, we expect the Jazz to showcase a more successful sales sheet this time round. It would be interesting to see how Honda positions the new Jazz in the market since Honda would not want the Jazz to affect sales of the Amaze or the City. At the same time, it faces the uphill task of competing with the feature rich Hyundai Elite i20 and the popular Maruti-Suzuki Swift.
More from OVERDRIVE on the new Honda Jazz:
Honda Jazz unveiled at Auto Expo 2014
Interview with Jnaneswar Sen about the new Honda Jazz for India
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Starts Rs 7.5 Lakhs
1199cc
Automatic
90
110
17.1 Kmpl
Starts Rs 5.5 Lakhs
1396cc
Manual
83
220
22.54 Kmpl
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