Honda has staunchly adhered to its philosophy of using only petrol power for its cars in India. The carmaker never saw the need for a diesel, and its petrol range has always been acknowledged as extremely frugal. However, in an extremely mileage-conscious country like India, diesel power is fast gaining ground. And Honda can’t ignore the diesel category anymore. It’s no longer question of ‘if’ but rather ‘when’ Honda will eventually plonk an oil-burner under the hood of its cars.
As you can see from these exclusive spy shots by observant Autocar India reader, Rishi Magoo, that day isn’t very far away. The i-CTDi badging you can clearly see at the base of the rear windscreen is a term coined by Honda for intelligent-Common-rail Turbocharged Direct Injection. The i-CTDi is the first diesel from Honda’s range worldwide, and debuted in the Accord. It has done duty across the range in the Accord, CR-V and Civic. In India, the first diesel Honda will be the CR-V. Honda realises that the recent launch of the Chevrolet Captiva could hurt sales of the CR-V and the Hyundai Santa Fe and Toyota Fortuner will eventually come.
The key issue for Honda though will be price; the CR-V is imported as a CBU, which means it attracts a very high import duty. Also, the cost of the motor itself is higher. To keep the costs within check, Honda will offer the CR-V with fewer creature comforts. That means no leather interiors, no automatic transmission, no CD changer or sunroof, as you can make out from the pictures.
Stripping these features will help offset the higher cost, and company insiders claim the diesel CR-V will be competitively priced, around the same as the fully-loaded 2.4-litre petrol. In the future, we can expect a diesel variant with all the bells and whistles, if the company feels there is a demand for it. The car currently being tested has pressed steel wheels, but these are expected to be standard alloys when the car is launched.
The car is currently undergoing testing, and the engineers are reportedly concerned about the quality of diesel available. The i-CTDi unit produces 138bhp, but expect that to be tamed slightly for Indian fuel. This means it has about 10bhp less than the Captiva, but then the CR-V weighs approximately 130kg less. The core of the CR-V is its driving dynamics, and these are expected to be remain undiluted. The trump card though will be the fuel efficiency, as with all Honda engines. The diesel CR-V has the potential to monopolise its segment, one in which it already has the largest share of the pie
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