Honda India announced that they will stop production in one of its two plants in India. The Greater Noida plant focussed on the production of larger Honda vehicles while the second Tapukara plant in Rajasthan focussed on high-speed production of smaller vehicles.
Honda Civic and CR-V were the biggest offerings in the company. The Greater Noida plant focussed on the production of these two cars and Honda City. While the production of the popular Honda City will be shifted to the plant in Tapukara, the bigger Honda Civic and Honda CR-V will no longer be produced in India.
The company will have to stop production of the two models as the Tapukara plant in Rajasthan is built for the smaller cars and introducing the production of cars like the City and CR-V will require a heavy investment in the facility. Instead, the company has decided to discontinue the two cars. The cars are still listed on the official website of the company. However, that may change once the stocks get exhausted.
Announcing the end of the road for two popular cars Honda Civic and Honda CR-V, HCIL Senior Vice-President and Director (Sales and Marketing) Rajesh Goel said, "It is a difficult decision for us to stop production of CR-V and Civic as both are popular global models. It has been done as Tapukara plant was conceived as a high efficiency facility for small and mid-sized cars. Cars above a certain size cannot be manufactured there unless you make certain investments there," he said.
The executive claimed that making these investments will ultimately lead to the increment in prices of the two cars which will, in turn, take them further out of reach from potential buyers. However, the company will continue to provide support to the existing owners of the two cars for the next 15 years.
With the two cars out of Honda’s portfolio, the company will only have the compact sedan Amaze, mid-size sedan Honda City, sub-4m SUV WR-V and premium hatchback Jazz.