Honda Cars India (HCIL) on Wednesday decided to discontinue the premium sedan Civic and sports utility vehicle (SUV) CR-V from India with immediate effect. With the goal of improving business efficiency, the company has also announced the realignment of its manufacturing operations. The company claims that it has been done to maintain sustainability of operations by leveraging production & supply chain efficiencies.

Mr. Gaku Nakanishi, President & CEO, Honda Cars India said, “Despite an uptick in sales in the last three months, the current market conditions remain unpredictable for the industry at large. The impact of COVID-19 has pressed us to strengthen our constitution, and to achieve the same, HCIL has decided to consolidate its manufacturing operations by making the Tapukara plant a unified manufacturing base. HCIL continues to believe in the resilience of the Indian economy and hope for a quicker recovery of the market. India is extremely important market in Honda’s global strategy and HCIL is committed to bring its latest and advanced technology models including electrified vehicles in future.”

Commenting on the end of road for CR-V and Civic models in India, HCIL Senior Vice-President and Director (Sales and Marketing) Rajesh Goel said: “It is a difficult decision for us to stop production of CR-V and Civic as both are popular global models. It has been done as Tapukara plant was conceived as a high efficiency facility for small and mid-sized cars. Cars above a certain size cannot be manufactured there unless you make certain investments there,” he said.

The company has stopped the production in Greater Noida plant. However, all Head Office functions, India R&D Centre and Spare Parts operations (including warehouse) for Automobile, Two Wheeler and Power Product business will continue to operate from Greater Noida.

The new Civic was launched in March 2019, after a gap of six years since being discontinued in 2013. Honda has sold more than 6,300 units of the 10th Generation Civic since March last year, and 55,000 units of the earlier generations. It has sold 19,400 units of the CR-V since 2003, according to a The Hindu Business Line report.

With inputs from PTI