Next-gen Honda Civic delayed by one year

Honda usually brings in a replacement for its cars every five years but this time around, the next-generation Civic will be delayed by one year and will hit showrooms in late 2011. Honda attributes the reasons to changing market conditions, tougher efficiency and emission standards and Honda will take an additional year to tune their new model. The Civic is already being based by the Corolla Altis in India which is selling close to 1000 units a month while the Civic only manages 100-200. While the Altis with its modern yet conventional design ages slowly, the futuristic Civic seems to have lost all the novelty that it flaunted when it was launched.

John Mendel said in an interview with Automotive news: “In general, we are not changing cycles. We change vehicles as need be. The ability to do something based on more current information is better than waiting a full model cycle. Some of that is being able to have the opportunity to change [based on] what you see happening in the marketplace.”

Importantly, the new Civic will be larger than the current car and sport similar design touches that helped the present model gain a huge fan following. Happily, the CR-V, also badly bashed by the Fortuner will be replaced by an all new model next year. Honda will find it difficult to maintain the sales of all their models after heavy competition from all corners of the marketplace. They will need to rework their strategy to get back in the game and getting a diesel engine means that 50% of the problem could be solved while the rest depends on the pricing. The Jazz is such a good example.

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