Honda Siel Cars India (HSCI), which last week took the auto industry by surprise when it announced a massive price cut on the Civic hybrid, has closed the offer after receiving 235 bookings for the car in 4 days. The Honda Civic hybrid was priced at Rs. 21.5 lakh, before Honda brought it down to Rs. 13.36 lakh. The offer is now closed, the company having already achieved the target it was aiming for.
The Civic hybrid, when it was launched in June 2008, was touted as India’s first hybrid car and received an enthusiastic early response with 52 bookings made in the first month. Further on, however, its sales went down dramatically, possibly because of the heavy price, which was more than double the price of the Civic’s petrol version.
In the four days that the offer was open, Honda received almost four times the bookings it received in the five months since the Civic hybrid was launched. Though auto industry analysts and competitors believe the move was an inventory cleaning exercise by Honda, the company’s representatives have refuted such reports.