It has been a long wait but Honda’s newest offering in India, its first all-new car in close to seven years, the Elevate has been launched at introductory prices ranging from Rs 11 lakh to Rs 16 lakh, ex-showroom. Offered in the SV, V, VX and ZX variants, deliveries have begun and pre-bookings of the SUV had been open since early July.
| Variants | Manual | Automatic |
| SV | Rs 11 lakh | – |
| V | Rs 12.11 lakh | Rs 13.21 lakh |
| VX | Rs 13.50 lakh | Rs 14.60 lakh |
| ZX | R 14.90 lakh | Rs 16 lakh |
Design highlights for the Honda Elevate include it boasting a traditional boxy and upright silhouette especially up front. The upright stance is accentuated by a large front grille flanked by LED headlights. There is also a touch of ruggedness courtesy of the flared wheel arches above the 17-inch alloy wheels. At the rear you get L-shaped LED tail lamps connected by a slim panel on the tailgate.
Inside, while the dashboard is simplistic, which is a typical Honda trait, the layered dashboard with brown and black accents give a nice bit of contrasts. Key features include a 10.25-inch floating infotainment display with wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, a seven-inch TFT instrument cluster, an electric sunroof, lane watch camera, connected tech and automatic climate control. Six airbags, ISOFIX mounts, rear parking sensors as well as the Honda Sensing suite of ADAS assists will cover passenger safety.
Under the hood of the Elevate is a 121PS 1.5-litre I-VTEC petrol motor like the City, paired to a six-speed manual or a CVT option. In terms of fuel efficiency, it offers 15.31kmpl from the six-speed manual option and 16.93kmpl with the CVT gearbox. Honda has also confirmed a battery electric vehicle based on the same platform is coming within the next three years. We can’t help but feel that the lack of a hybrid variant was a bit of an oversight from Honda, though.
With the launch of the Honda Elevate, it enters the hotly contested midsize SUV segment which includes the likes of the Hyundai Creta, Kia Seltos, Maruti Suzuki Grand Vitara, Toyota Urban Cruiser Hyryder, Volkswagen Taigun and Skoda Kushaq as well as the upcoming Citroen C3 Aircross. We’ve also driven the SUV and you can check out our first impressions of it in our first drive review.
