[KL01BE]

One of my sources in Honda has confirmed that Honda is about to offer CNG variants of City and is also making available the CNG kits for existing Honda customers by October 2012. It is confirmed that the training materials have been made available at the service centers. CNG makes sense when it is known that due to non-availability of diesel mill in the Honda stable is making huge dent in the sale of various models. How far this is going to help the Indian customer is yet to be seen. The sales guys at Honda seem to be very enthusiastic about this.

It is high time for Honda to bring in some thing like this,

T-Bhpians at better locations, please confirm the news.

rgds
KL01BE

[vibbs]

A CNG Honda? Wow!! thats interesting. At many instances in this forum I have seen people pointing out how Honda engines are not very suitable for CNG. Will be interesting to see how Honda optimizes their engines for CNG usage. A rev friendly Honda with the same refinement but along with an option for lower running costs sounds tempting.
Use CNG in city and turn to petrol and revv off on week ends keeping both your wallet and the petrolhead in you happy. Plus with factory fitted CNG option, you have Honda reliability backing you.

However, Honda engines love to be revved and are not really known for their low end grunt. With CNG the lack of power at low rpms will be magnified. How do they plan to go around that?

[byomjeet]

I have always been telling my friends that Honda should come up with diesel options if they want to survive in this market. CNG in Honda City is definitely a welcome move from Honda but availability of this natural gas is not wide spread. A LPG version should also solve their problem to some extent. But a diesel power train is the only option for Honda to compete in this market and increase the footfall in their deserted showrooms.

[negativeH]

Aftermarket CNG is very common in the City, particularly the idsi models, have seen plenty.

This is kind of a safe gamble; a company provided CNG install would make the variant costlier by 50K I presume, and with the already heavy battle in the segment, another price rise would be bad for the car.

This could however, be a move keeping in mind the Gujarat's Govt claim of making all car's CNG run, so maybe Honda are predicting something similar for other cities.

[wilful]

In the short term one wonders if it really would make much of a difference given the lack of CNG infrastructure in most parts of the country. Of course, it would give them a chance to make some kind of noise and try to stir up interest. But I am rather skeptical about sales being shored up with this move - though I guess till that diesel comes to India, they need to do something.

[KL01BE]

On digging further, I was told that the Honda cars will not be coming with factory fitted CNG kits, instead, the kits will be supplied to the service centers and training will be given to the service personnel. The kits are said to be manufactured by a Japan based company(not sure whether it is Honda itself). Honda is on the look out for opening franchises for fitting the CNG kits. It was confirmed that a number of Delhi based entrepreneurs have already taken the dealership.

Recently, I also saw an advertisement in the newspaper about spreading CNG supply to all parts of the country. It was published by a oil/gas refining PSU.

[mayankjha1806]

Strange but interesting news for sure. Honda's are known for building amazing petrol engines which are fun to drive. It will be interesting to see the drivability of CNG engines from Honda. Somehow they both do not gel well, but if Honda does is successfully, it would be nothing short of miracle.

In terms of power and fuel efficiency it will be a true test of Honda engineering and R&D to come out with a winner engine which conquers on both these departments, like they have done in Petrol.

[srishiva]

Honda has been building a CNG Civic in the U.S for years and is the most least polluting Partial Zero Emission vehicle there. They should have built it from factory in a similar fashion.

So are these vehicles with kits only on CNG and not a hybrid like the LPG ones?

[hrman]

Is CNG available anywhere else other than Mumbai, NCR and Pune/ Gujarat? They should have come up with LPG as a more universal option, considering that it is available in most Indian cities.
However, nice initiative from them. Would look forward to the diesel mill in 2014. That may be a game changer for them as far as their fortunes in the Indian market are concerned.

[CARDEEP]

This a wonderful, but delayed step, as Honda already have CNG Civics running in US. But, not sure how would be the driveability of the Honda (barring City) due to inadequate low end torque, & this issue could be magnified in CNG mode.

Further, we need to understand the issues related to warranty of the manufacturer in case of kits installed at dealer.

[sameerg001]

Originally Posted by hrman

Is CNG available anywhere else other than Mumbai, NCR and Pune/ Gujarat?

Yes, It is. In barailey, Gajraula ( near moradabad ) and Near Merrut bypass.

Cheers
Sameer

[vijaythacker]

Here at ahmedabad, there are dealers putting cng kits with warranty intacts, dont knw if they are company authorised or not,also are expensive then kits done outside for cngs.One of my relative did it on his jazz.

[KL01BE]

Hi guys,

Rohan BRC gas agency pvt ltd, Ahemadabad, are giving the agency, try getting some info from them.

Ahemedabad guys, are you listening?

[ankur_fox]

Post deleted by the Team-BHP Support : Please do NOT post one-liners that add little or no informational value to the thread. We need your co-operation to maintain the overall quality of this forum.

Please read our rules before proceeding any further.

[niv26]

This is great news, The availability of CNG in Hyderabad is not that bad now. I was thinking to upgrade to diesel from my ANHC (but ANHC resale value very low now). This is very good option if company provides kit and no need of diesel car.