By Chitwan Sharma
NEW DELHI: Introduced back in 1998 The Honda City has been a crowd favorite ever since. It is in fact the most popular mid-size sedan in India. Over the years the city has undergone a series of growth to stay up-to-date for the Indian market. A total of 4 generations came out in the past 22 years and all of them were a great success as they sold over 4 million units in 60 countries. The fifth generation of the City was scheduled to launch earlier this year but got delayed due to the Coronavirus pandemic.
2020 Honda City: What’s New?
Launched on 15th July 2020, the new City has all sorts of electronic bits and bobs that you need. Honda spent a lot of time in improving the overall layout and ergonomics of the car. Even the dashboard and the instrument cluster are entirely new. On the outside, the 2020 Honda City sports a new hood and grille, with a fascia design the automaker calls a “vertical waterfall”. On the front, you get a sharp LED headlamp set-up on either side which consists of 9 LED inline shells along with LED DRLs. And on the rear-end of the car, you get 3D LED tail lamps on both sides which gives the car a very modern and premium look. The fifth-generation City is 4,549mm long, 1,748mm wide, and 1,489mm high. The car comes equipped with 16-inch diamond-cut alloy wheels, but just like the last generation of the City, they look a bit small when compared to the overall dimensions of the car.
Just like the front-end, the interior of the City looks slightly inspired by the Honda Civic and Accord. In terms of interior Honda has definitely improved the quality and you get much better gadgetry and equipment compared to the previous generation. It has been updated with an 8-inch touch screen infotainment system. Honda’s infotainment system is simple and easy to use, and there are plenty of power ports to go around. The 8.0-inch touchscreen also supports Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. It also has a multifunction steering wheel, electric sunroof, key-less entry and engine start/stop button. For the AC you get illuminated traditional rotary dials which makes it easier to operate while driving. On the instrument cluster behind the steering wheel, there is a 7-inch TFT LCD screen that displays tons of information with the click of a button. This car gets app connectivity through Honda Connect which offers more than 32 connectivity features like tyre pressure, fuel status, car location, etc. The ignition can also be turned on through this app from your mobile phone.
Engine and transmission
The base powertrain is a non-turbocharged four-cylinder and six-speed manual transmission. The petrol variant comes equipped with a 1.5 liter i-VTEC DOHC with VTC(variable valve timing control). The petrol i-VTEC delivers a healthy 121 ps of power and
145nm of peak torque. There is a 1.5-liter i-DTEC diesel as well for the Honda city which puts out about 100ps of power and 200 nm of torque. There is a 7-speed automatic coupled to a CVT (continuously variable automatic transmission) sending power to the front wheels. The automatic transmission is only available in petrol at the moment. The 2020 Honda City has an ARAI-certified mileage of 17.8 Km/L with the 6-speed manual transmission and 18.4 Km/L with the CVT. Whereas the diesel version gives 24.1 Km/L.
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