Honda gears up to launch two new models soon in India 

Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India (HMSI), which resumed manufacturing operations and sales operations last month, is gearing up to roll out two new products in the next month or possibly even earlier. The company today released a teaser video of the first product planned for launch soon, and it is a scooter. The upcoming BS VI Grazia.

The teaser is of the upcoming BS6 Grazia and it reveals that the unit will feature a number of updates over the model it replaces. The second upcoming product is likely to be a motorcycle.

For starters, Honda has tweaked the design of the scooter, giving it a sharper stance. The LED headlight unit appears sleeker and the new Grazia gets LED DRLs, much like the Dio’s. The handlebar cowl has also been redesigned slightly, with sharper lines and edges. The body panels on the side of the scooter look sharper as well, while the tail section and brake-light assembly have been redesigned, too.

Another significant giveaway in the teaser is the presence of a new twin-pod digital instrument cluster. The larger unit on top consists of a speedometer and tachometer, while the secondary unit seen consists of a clock, fuel gauge and tripmeter. Honda has revealed in its press note that the upcoming scooter will be “incredibly intelligent”, and so we can expect the BS6 Grazia to display more statistics like range and real-time efficiency.

While the teaser does not reveal any technical details, the new BS6 Grazia will share its powerplant with the BS6 Activa 125 – just like on the BS4 scooters. This 124cc liquid-cooled engine produces 8.1hp and 10.3Nm of torque, but whether the scooter will get an improvement in performance is not clear at the moment. The last frame of the teaser has the words ‘A Quiet Revolution’, hinting that the new Grazia will be equipped with Honda’s silent-start system. 

The BS4 Honda Grazia was priced between Rs 62,025 and Rs 66,397 (ex-showroom, Delhi). The Honda Activa 125 and Dio witnessed a hike of around Rs 7,000-8,000 with their updates and a similar increase is expected with the new Grazia.

The company's new product launch programme for FY2021 is on track albeit things have been delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the resultant lockdowns. But from the looks of it, with its four manufacturing plants humming away and its sales counter ticking, Honda is gearing up to roll out its second product after the opening of the lockdown. The first launch was on June 1, when HMSI launched tthe CD 110 Dream commuter motorcycle. 

Speaking exclusively to Autocar Professional last week, Yadvinder Singh Guleria, Director (Sales & Marketing), HMSI, said: "What is required to bring positivity and revive consumer sentiment, some sort of good news which could be in the form of an exciting new product. In that sense, we are not moving away from any of our original plans of launching new models."

Full interview with YS Guleria in
Autocar Pro's Two-Wheeler Special 

"While all those launches are very much on track, what’s gone off track are the timelines and schedules. That’s because a lot of the development activity of the new models was also stalled during the lock-down. Now since everybody is back to work including our R&D team, albeit in limited numbers, we are assessing ways to recover the lost time and be able to squeeze the timelines of launching new products.

So, new launches from HMSI are going to happen. We have already launched the CD 110 Dream and are on track, and we will be coming up with two new launches in the next month or so. This will bring a lot of energy and agility at our dealerships as well and will help change the mood at the network level, which is actually the need of the hour, said Guleria.

With the country gradually opening up, it remains to be seen how long the two-wheeler market, which was down 18% in FY2020, will take to return to better times. What's important though is that the new product factory of OEMs remains alive and kicking. And that's just what HMSI is doing. Stay tuned for more news.