Brio is
Honda’s first small car in India. First
and till date the only small car from Honda in India. It came here in 2011 and
since then two years have passed but it could never be a car selling in decent
numbers. It has almost everything that
can make it buyer’s choice. It has the
best petrol engine that is refined, silent, fuel efficient and powerful. It has
with it the name of Honda reliability which is so famous worldwide and a
service network that is small but expending in India. Honda was never
considered by car users as a brand whose service and maintenance costs are sky
high, unlike some European brands (Volkswagen, Skoda etc) nor its cars require
too much maintenance and repairs (unlike Ford, Fiat etc).
Brio looks
futuristic from outside and has a design that will not be considered outdated
for quite a long time.
In contradiction to this, Ford’s Figo looked outdated on
the very day of its launch. Brio looks spacious inside and it is actually spacious
inside. Some of its competitors like Swift from Suzuki and i10 from Hyundai
give a claustrophobic feeling for the rear seat occupants, although Hyundai has
tried to correct that feeling to some extent in the new Grand i10. And these two cars, i10 and Swift are selling
in very good numbers, Swift around 17,000 units per month and i10 around 6,000
units. We can safely assume that out of these 17,000 units for Swift, around 5000
are petrol units as the ratio between diesel units and petrol units is about 5:2. i10, on the other hand, had only petrol model
till recently when Grand i10 joined it.
So, against
5000 Swifts and 6000 i10s being sold per month, Brio manages around 1600. One reason, we may say, is the very small
network of Honda dealerships compared to Hyundai and Suzuki in India. But that is
not the reason as has been proved by the success of Ford’s Ecosport and Duster
from Renault, both of which are having network smaller than that of Honda.
The problem
with Brio is that it has a small boot, quite small. But most of the people would not mind
it. The major problem with Brio lies
inside. It has a dashboard that is good in quality but does not look like
so. For many people, it is kind of cheap
although it is not. There is no symmetry
in the structure of the dashboard.
Brio
When we compare it with that of Toyota Liva’s
dashboard, none of them is pleasing to eyes. Although Honda’s dashboard’s quality
is good, it looks like an eye-sore. On the contrary, when we sit in i10 or
Grand i10, a sense of richness fills the eyes.
i10
Grand i10
Swift dashboard also is good.
Then why so much cost cutting, Mr Honda? Does it save some money by making the
dashboard asymmetrical? Moreover, changing the dashboard is not that difficult
like changing the engine or changing the length, width etc of the car. If there
is just one small negative thing, remove it rather then continuing with it and
saying that petrol only cars do not sell well in India. Another model from
Honda in India, Amaze is selling well although having the same dashboard but it
sells because it has a diesel heart. And it is priced quite competitively with
a very large boot. So, to avoid Brios dusting in the dealership yards, please hire a
good interior designer, Mr Honda.
