Price positioning of Skoda Slavia against Honda City

Honda City VX variant has a strong value for money proposition now, as there is no equivalent Skoda Slavia variant.

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Variant wise feature differential comparison

• Bold text highlights price-wise heavy items
• Slavia Active variant without rear AC vent, manual AC and armrest is not worth considering for ₹ 10,69,000
• City 4th generation SV variant, meant for lower sticker price, seems to be a better choice over Slavia Active variant
• Slavia Ambition variant is more close to City’s V variant
• But surcharge of ₹ 1,16,000 makes the Honda City V variant more value for money choice and additional 2 airbags cannot be ignored
• Instead of Slavia Ambition MT, customers can easily buy City V CVT, as a ₹ 35,000 discount is already available
• Honda City VX variant has a strong value for money proposition now, as there is no equivalent Skoda Slavia variant, and yes it does have a sunroof
• Slavia Style variant has a slight feature advantage over top-end City ZX and seems worth a ₹ 31,000 surcharge
• But if Honda offers a discount worth ₹ 35,000, the value equation may tilt slightly in its favour
• Skoda could have at least named Style NSR (non-sunroof) variant as ‘Style’ variant, and current Style as ‘Style+’, their current approach seems regressive
• Honda is offering highly valued sunroof, in India, on top two variants, seems Skoda has not so a smart research team at work
• Owning City automatic (CVT) with better fuel efficiency makes more sense for value-conscious buyers who can live with the rubber-band effect

High-performance Skoda Slavia Style variant

• 1.5 TSI DSG doesn’t have any direct competition as of now and Skoda is asking for a price premium of ₹ 2,40,000 for more fun to drive Slavia
• It is strange that there is no visual differentiation between regular and high-performance version
• They should have brought Fabia Monte Carlo touch to Style 1.5 TSI variant, as they already have a ready template and shared parts from European Fabia

• Skoda if you are reading this, at least call this Slavia variant ‘Slavia 150’ to signify 150 PS (Pferd Starke is the metric measure of horsepower), similar to Octavia RS245 and have some differentiation, believe me, it works like magic
• The resale value of the DSG variant will not be so good once the warranty period expires, as it has reliability issues
• Even during warranty, a used car buyer will pre-empt risk and may offer less money

Safety

• KIA Seltos still sells in quite good numbers, which means many Indians still don’t care much for the low GNCAP safety crash test rating
• For those who care - City 4th generation now has a proven GNACP safety crash test rating of 4 stars, and Honda claims that 5th generation City has a higher content of high strength steel
• Rajesh Goel interview (Autocar India)
• VAG’s new India specific platform isn’t crash-tested yet
• City and Slavia are equally matched on safety equipment level

Brand identity

• Skoda’s brand campaign seems to be designed to attract those who still want to own a sedan and not to entice new ones into their fold

• Skoda should have taken a leaf out of VW marketing campaign for Virtus
• VW is simply saying – ‘Sedans are fun to drive and we know how to add fun to your everyday routine’ – nice way to break the clutter of crossovers and attract enthusiast and also non-enthusiast family-oriented buyers

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