[ssoni.1411]

Originally Posted by Explorer...

A bit of comparison between Elevate and Creta/ Seltos 1.5 NA

Similarities
- Similar power and torque figures
- Same/ similar auto gearbox

The above 2 may translate into similar driving experience (if Honda fails to enthuse on highways, not sure if Creta and Seltos can provide much better experience)

Honda advantages
- Better safety (structural built)
- Better handling and dynamics (?)
- Higher ground clearance
- Inner space
- Honda reliability - everlasting cars (may be a little bit more than Hyundai and Kia)

Creta/ Seltos advantages
- Some essential features (for a few people) such as ventilated seats and panoramic sunroof
- Some good to have features (which may be important for some and not so for others)

Not comparing looks as those are subjective.

Now, assuming ~70% of Creta and Seltos are sold in 1.5NA petrol configuration, is there not a big market for Honda to compete with Elevate in this segment (1.5 NA)?

Creta and Seltos looks and feels premium inside out along with being feature loaded. Also you don't require features till the time you start using them. This coupled with the ASS that Hyundai and Kia have offered is very brilliant. No doubt Honda engines are really reliable and work like a charm, but for the same price or a couple of bucks over you will get a premium car with good resale value too

[Explorer...]

Originally Posted by evilminstrel

This is a perfect car for a aficionado. Many would not like it for the lack of features, but then, many want smartphones out of their cars, what to do.

Safety is good, driving dynamics is good, comfort is good, boot space is good, music is good, reliability is good, feel is good. Would I reject this car over panoramic sunroof or ventilated seats or unpainted under bonnet?- I dont think so. It is a car, not sofa in my balcony.

At least for me, the pertinent questions are:

Can I rely on this car for a 1500 KM drive plan I made an hour ago? Would it has smooth ownership experience? Would I be confident overtaking a trailer behind the wheels? Am I getting the essentials out of this car? Would it be fun to drive? - Answer is yes. Added confidence is because of my City, which is ever ready for 1500 Kms drive without a shred of doubt. I expect similar confidence with this Car and Honda's seriousness with this car.

By the way, it has ADAS 2 - for those who have been mentioning ADAS 1.

I would not even mind buying it at the Seltos pricing for the reason of comfort, drive dynamics and being reliable.

I am in the market for a new car in 15-16 L range and have this one on my radar. Two of my major concerns are
1. Engine noise on highways (considering high RPMs at >100 kmph)
2. Possibility of motion sickness at rear seat

I was earlier eyeing Virtus since it checked all my requirements except reliability/ ASS. If VW has improved on that front, I might still go that since it checks all other boxes (safety, comfort, driving pleasure, ground clearance for a sedan, etc.)

Can anyone throw some light on:
1. Whether engine noise is bearable at high speeds
2. Will the suspension set-up and related factors of Elevate not induce motion sickness as compared to other SUVs?

Originally Posted by ssoni.1411

Creta and Seltos looks and feels premium inside out along with being feature loaded. Also you don't require features till the time you start using them. This coupled with the ASS that Hyundai and Kia have offered is very brilliant. No doubt Honda engines are really reliable and work like a charm, but for the same price or a couple of bucks over you will get a premium car with good resale value too

So, for premiumness people will go for Creta/ Seltos. For better safety, handling and dynamics, Elevate may be preferred.
In Creta/ Seltos favour, premiumness is visible while Elevate's advantages are intangible

[Shreyans_Jain]

Originally Posted by amalji

The biggest difference is the ground clearance. I don't think there is any Honda worldwide with as high a ground clearance as the elevate.

I refuse to buy that a global auto major like Honda failed to handle ground clearance. That is textbook PR nonsense. There are plenty of cars with similar or even higher ground clearance that max out higher. Everything from Nexon to XUV300 to Harrier to Scorpio to Fortuner.

Forget modern cars, decade + old models of Scorpio, Safari Storme, Aria, Outlander etc were all capable of exceeding 160 on the speedo. The original WagonR used to hit 160. The old Fiat Palio Adventure and Punto Avventura world hit and exceed 160. Even the 25 year old 5speed MPFi Maruti 800 used to max out its 140kmph speedo and go faster still.

[amalji]

Originally Posted by Shreyans_Jain

I refuse to buy that a global auto major like Honda failed to handle ground clearance. That is textbook PR nonsense. There are plenty of cars with similar or even higher ground clearance that max out higher. Everything from Nexon to XUV300 to Harrier to Scorpio to Fortuner.

Forget modern cars, decade + old models of Scorpio, Safari Storme, Aria, Outlander etc were all capable of exceeding 160 on the speedo. The original WagonR used to hit 160. The old Fiat Palio Adventure and Punto Avventura world hit and exceed 160. Even the 25 year old 5speed MPFi Maruti 800 used to max out its 140kmph speedo and go faster still.

I'm sure even the elevate can do that easily and maybe in a much better way than the cars mentioned above. But i would still appreciate a manufacturer taking a conservative approach here if they doubt the stability even by a bit. In fact I would prefer Toyota do such speed limits for all of their ladder on frame vehicles. Manufacturers shouldn't be ashamed of doing that and shouldn't be hiding behind their ego. And i appreciate Honda's courage here.

A Maruti Alto being able to go at speeds higher than the amaze in no way shows the incapability of the chassis of the amaze compared to an Alto. It just shows extra responsibility to its customers by one manufacturer.

[theabstractmind]

Originally Posted by fhdowntheline

Toyota Yaris- This was a great product that TKML launched back in the day, with 7 airbags as standard, no-nonsense engineering in the 1.5 NA, Toyota reliability. But it simply did not work when the market was moving towards feature rich cars with more power/performance.
Apart from ADAS (which is again likely not a standard feature across Elevate variants) I dont see much difference between this car and the established Korean/VAG rivals. In fact the VAG cars may be equally exciting to drive in the 1.0 TSI guise (forget the 1.5 TSI). Help me understand what makes the Elevate a better choice than, say, a Taigun 1.0 TSI.

As an owner of Yaris, I must say that this is not a product meant to compete with other products and grab a market share. It is a market to retain Honda Loyalists OR customers like me who are willing to give a no nonsense product a try. And I tell, I liked the Yaris better than the 5th Gen City as it meets the basic expectations better than others. Not the feature list.

Along with an export market, this product may meet Honda's internal targets. Let's see how it fares once sales begin.

[coldice4u]

Would anyone know why do car manufacturers leave such space at the edge of seats. If the seat could've been extended into the highlighted areas, this car would have had a impressive rear bench. Looking at the picture as it is, that is a disappointing bench in terms of the ability to seat 3 vis a vis the size of the car itself.

[mkumar79]

Eagerly awaiting the price announcement. A reliable, safe, spacious, unoffending SUV
with a proven powertrain is surely not DoA unless it is priced close to Fortuner.

The Elevate is an easy-to-recommend family car. Many reviewers are finding it fun-to-drive as well.

Honda, now that you have elevated our expectations a notch, why not quickly bring on more variants. A HyComfort edition with ventilated seats, front parking sensors, auto-wipers will be a good start.

Or may be a factory-fitted twin cylinder CNG? But I bet this innovation hasn't been noticed by your scroll-writers yet

[ergon_9700]

Originally Posted by mkumar79

Eagerly awaiting the price announcement. A reliable, safe, spacious, unoffending SUV
with a proven powertrain is surely not DoA unless it is priced close to Fortuner.

The Elevate is an easy-to-recommend family car. Many reviewers are finding it fun-to-drive as well.

Honda, now that you have elevated our expectations a notch, why not quickly bring on more variants. A HyComfort edition with ventilated seats, front parking sensors, auto-wipers will be a good start.

Or may be a factory-fitted twin cylinder CNG? But I bet this innovation hasn't been noticed by your scroll-writers yet

If the customers demand these features and hybrid engine as well(which I hope the customers do), Honda may well bring it as Hybrids account a good chunk of GV/Hyryder order book.

Regarding twin cylinder CNG tech, Tata has filed a patent for this tech so Honda can't technically use this tech.

[07CR]

Originally Posted by Explorer...

So, for premiumness people will go for Creta/ Seltos. For better safety, handling and dynamics, Elevate may be preferred.
In Creta/ Seltos favour, premiumness is visible while Elevate's advantages are intangible

As of now, neither the Seltos FL and Elevate have been tested by GNCAP. So let's leave that bit out for now. In terms of handling and dynamics too, the Seltos atleast has been tremendously fun car, and therefore even this is not a tangible advantage for Elevate at the moment.

Originally Posted by Shreyans_Jain

I refuse to buy that a global auto major like Honda failed to handle ground clearance. That is textbook PR nonsense. There are plenty of cars with similar or even higher ground clearance that max out higher. Everything from Nexon to XUV300 to Harrier to Scorpio to Fortuner.

Forget modern cars, decade + old models of Scorpio, Safari Storme, Aria, Outlander etc were all capable of exceeding 160 on the speedo. The original WagonR used to hit 160. The old Fiat Palio Adventure and Punto Avventura world hit and exceed 160. Even the 25 year old 5speed MPFi Maruti 800 used to max out its 140kmph speedo and go faster still.

Originally Posted by amalji

I'm sure even the elevate can do that easily and maybe in a much better way than the cars mentioned above. But i would still appreciate a manufacturer taking a conservative approach here if they doubt the stability even by a bit. In fact I would prefer Toyota do such speed limits for all of their ladder on frame vehicles. Manufacturers shouldn't be ashamed of doing that and shouldn't be hiding behind their ego. And i appreciate Honda's courage here.

Agree with Shreyans here. That's just Honda's marketing speak. I believe the answer lies in the gearing.

Since the Elevate weighs more than City, and has that brick like appearance sacrificing City's aerodynamic advantage, Honda probably went with shorter gearing for first two gears to compensate for the performance disadvantage. For the same, to maintain a good top end range the other gears would have been needed to be taller than usual. This would have resulted in good top speed, but lower acceleration. Hence Honda probably sacrificed the top speed for good driveable speed upto 165 kph, which IMO is not a negative per say.

[Shreyans_Jain]

Originally Posted by 07CR

As of now, neither the Seltos FL and Elevate have been tested by GNCAP. So let's leave that bit out for now. In terms of handling and dynamics too, the Seltos atleast has been tremendously fun car, and therefore even this is not a tangible advantage for Elevate at the moment.

Spot on.
At the end of the day. Seltos is a 100% proven and successful product, well accepted by the market. Elevate is brand new, has no real USP, and has its work cut out.

Since the Elevate weighs more than City, and has that brick like appearance sacrificing City's aerodynamic advantage, Honda probably went with shorter gearing for first two gears to compensate for the performance disadvantage. For the same, to maintain a good top end range the other gears would have been needed to be taller than usual. This would have resulted in good top speed, but lower acceleration. Hence Honda probably sacrificed the top speed for good driveable speed upto 165 kph, which IMO is not a negative per say.

Of course it is not a negative. 160 is well above any current of upcoming speed limit anywhere in India. It is about communication. Marketing and PR departments could have handled this better. What was the need for them to discuss the top speed? That could have been left to the YouTubers.

It is a fact that gears 1 and 2 are shorter than City. But that still does not fully explain such a difference. If your reasoning is correct, Elevate can be expected to be peppier than City in the 100-140kmph speed range. By extension, peppier then Verna, Creta and Seltos NA models too. If that is indeed the case, it is a very fair and acceptable trade off. Again, only a proper highway drive can throw light on this.

The CVT doesn’t seem to be short geared, going by videos posted online. Why is that capped to 160-165 then? The CVT’s drive review is badly missed.

[Explorer...]

Originally Posted by 07CR

In terms of handling and dynamics too, the Seltos atleast has been tremendously fun car, and therefore even this is not a tangible advantage for Elevate at the moment.

Is Seltos 1.5 NA also more fun to drive compared to Elevate?

I gave a bit of advantage from safety perspective to Elevate since they atleast showed images of internal crash tests (although not as reliable as independent assessment). However, that was much credible than showing elephants standing on Creta (although I still think that picture was fake).

[venus1975]

Originally Posted by 07CR

As of now, neither the Seltos FL and Elevate have been tested by GNCAP. So let's leave that bit out for now. In terms of handling and dynamics too, the Seltos atleast has been tremendously fun car, and therefore even this is not a tangible advantage for Elevate at the moment.

I know you have been thoroughly disappointed with the Elevate.
I'm just curious - have you firmly made up your mind against the Elevate? Or, would you still give it a chance if the top end is priced about a Lakh less than the Seltos HTX?

[07CR]

Originally Posted by venus1975

I know you have been thoroughly disappointed with the Elevate.
I'm just curious - have you firmly made up your mind against the Elevate? Or, would you still give it a chance if the top end is priced about a Lakh less than the Seltos HTX?

If priced at a lakh lesser than Seltos HTX IVT, I would indeed give Elevate ZX CVT a healthy chance. Hope your words come true. That said, the City ZX CVT is priced at about a lakh lower than Seltos HTX IVT. Therefore it looks a little difficult to me, considering Honda would command atleast a 70K premium over the City for SUV form factor. But there are many features missing vis-a-vis City, and the interior isn't as premium as City. Hope they surprise by undercutting City.

Originally Posted by Explorer...

Is Seltos 1.5 NA also more fun to drive compared to Elevate?

I gave a bit of advantage from safety perspective to Elevate since they atleast showed images of internal crash tests (although not as reliable as independent assessment). However, that was much credible than showing elephants standing on Creta (although I still think that picture was fake).

I never claimed the Seltos 1.5NA to be more fun compared to Elevate. Just saying its no slouch either. Therefore in ride and handling department, neither can't be given a tangible advantage as of now, considering not many have compared the two back to back.

Regarding safety, hope both are tested by Bncap/Gncap, and we don't have to rely on marketing material from either company.

Originally Posted by theabstractmind

As an owner of Yaris, I must say that this is not a product meant to compete with other products and grab a market share. It is a market to retain Honda Loyalists OR customers like me who are willing to give a no nonsense product a try. And I tell, I liked the Yaris better than the 5th Gen City as it meets the basic expectations better than others. Not the feature list.

Along with an export market, this product may meet Honda's internal targets. Let's see how it fares once sales begin.

Yaris was one of the most loaded sedans and built with high quality materials all around (Neither of the case with Elevate). Major reasons for its failure- Quirky looks, low interior space and price premium compared to the market leaders- City and Verna. Honda have got the looks sorted, and interior space too looks comparable to the segment. They badly need to price it right, since the equipment and interior quality is atrocious considering 2023 standards.

[W.A.G.7]

Excellent review as always! Overall, it looks like this car will be a jack of all trades and a master of none. I would buy one - not because I like it much, but maybe because of the reliability factor. Possibly there will be many like me, who may be thinking on the same terms.

I was a bit appalled to read they are still one month away from the launch! They are already late to the party by 5+ years and here they are delaying the price reveal and launch as much as possible! Someone at Honda really needs to align the company and get it going as soon as possible if they want this car to be an "average" success!

While the overall car has ticked the most boxes for the average person, I just hope that Honda prices it correctly. I mean, very correctly. Already by September, the Kia Seltos version 2.0 is going to sell like hotcakes, and if Honda gets the pricing wrong (read overly optimistic) with this car, it will be game over for this car.

[Cadd7027]

Hi Folks,

Since the reviews are out, my confusion has gone one level up.

I am in search for AT Mid-Size SUV and primary requirement is to sit 4 folks comfortably and drive is city/highway (50/50)

Background:

Budget 17L (Ex-Showroom)

I drove my friends Grand Vitara AT and with 4 folks was finding it really difficult to overtake the trucks/trailers, so forget about cruising cars. I had to plan those well in advance and then work with paddles. This became really cumbersome, and I realized I was not enjoying my drive. No sure if that's the case only with that car but 102 BHP seems less.

My current car is K10 2016 (MT) and it’s a rev-happy motor and I can pull off overtakes pretty seamlessly by slotting it in 2nd or 3rd.TBH I felt the GV more underpowered than my K10. Point to note is in my K10 me and my wife travel as the rear seats or the boot cannot accommodate additional 2 folks in ease. I call it 2 seater with 4 doors . The Simple mechanicals and bullet proof reliability, along with fun to drive nature, has kept me glued to it till now.

So, I zeroed on Elevate ZX CVT and after following the Taigun thread and I understand most of the issues are sorted out in BS-6-P.2 cars. For me reliability is also pretty important. (My primary need is to sit 4 comfotably which both of these can do)

Elevate ZX CVT or Taigun Topline 1.0 AT: I have driven the Taigun briefly and found it pretty good, although with 2 folks me and the SA. If I look at the power figures, the Honda has a few more horses and Taigun has 40 NM more. Then the CVT vs TC comes in.

Would love to hear some expert opinions here. Will Honda CVT provide similar performance in line with Taigun 1.0 AT or shall i go ahead with Taigun and take a slight hit on reliability and ASS.

If Honda lets say comes near to Taigun’s 1.0 AT’s territory. I would like to go for it purely because of the reliability front or lets say its drives in lines with GV AT. In that case I will drop from my list of probables