Honda has sold 16,000 units of the Amaze sedan since its launch in April.
About 80 per cent of it has come from the diesel variant, encouraging Honda to push more diesel models in the next few years.
For some time now, the Indian market has been seeing a skew towards diesel.
Having missed the bus, or car in this case, for long, the Japanese car-maker made amends with the entry-level Amaze diesel car, which competes with Maruti Swift Dzire and Toyota Etios.
Today, Amaze has a waiting period of 4-5 months with its Greater Noida plant striving to keep pace with demand, which is also strong from tier II and III cities.
“We are trying hard to increase production of Amaze. There is also a production constraint at our supplier side,” said Hironori Kanayama, President & CEO, Honda Cars India, addressing the media here.
Though none of Honda’s current models such as the City and Civic will see a diesel variant, its upcoming models – the next-generation Jazz next year, a seven-seater multi-purpose vehicle, a compact SUV and a new City by 2015 – will have a diesel variant. “Before the Amaze, we operated only in 10 per cent of the passenger car market in India with our petrol models (Civic, City, Accord and Brio).
With more diesel models coming up, we hope to expand our operating field to 50 per cent in the next few years,” said Jnaneswar Sen, Senior Vice-President, Sales and Marketing.
Last year, Honda sold 73,500 units in India, at a 35 per cent growth over the previous year.
Production capacity at the Noida plant is 1.2 lakh units, which Honda hopes to utilise fully this year.
The company is also setting up a car assembly line at Tapukara, Rajasthan, at an investment of Rs 2,500 crore.