Honda has been out of the SUV market for a long time until now. Adding to the line of Amaze and City in India, Honda is all set to enter the SUV body style competition globally with the Elevate. The appeal for a larger, more capable car is at an all-time high in India. HCIL wants a piece of that market, but the competition from across-the-globe offerings brings tough competition. Honda City is one car you see all around; it has a good engine, good transmission, space and comfort, reliability factor, and an ASEAN N-Cap 5 rated for safety. Building on the City's strong foundation, Honda Elevate brings more in terms of sheer dimensions, feel and clever electronic aids.
India is the largest populated and has one of the largest young crowds worldwide. Our automotive market has witnessed a boom; hence the Honda Elevate is accompanied by what seems to be a paradox of choice among car body styles. We drove this new entrant among twisties of Raita hills, car-carved off-road trails among mountains and some open narrow stretches of Udaipur, Rajasthan, India and the Elevate seems promising enough to elevate HCIL car orders in the upcoming months. Here's why!
Verdict
The Honda Elevate is a well-thought-out product from Honda. It features everything you desire regarding wireless connectivity and usable actual cameras featuring interesting software enhancements for daily use. The chassis, suspension setup, seats and underpinnings take the best from the Honda City and improve upon it to tackle just about anything under this car’s wheels while providing a class-leading ride quality and comfort. HCIL plans to build an EV based on the Honda Elevate, and this petrol variant gets the best of both worlds. There is EV-level comfort, rivalling the best of this segment with one of the best NA engine and transmission options available in HCIL’s arsenal. Test drives open soon, and Honda plans to start production in August 2023, with deliveries as soon as September 23. This car should be priced in and around the Honda City prices, and if one engine unit brings price parity, there is nothing as comfortable to drive or be driven as the Honda Elevate for the money.
Limited by powertrain, and unlimited ride comfort
The Honda Elevate features the same powertrain and transmissions as the Honda City, the 1.5L i-VTEC + VTC petrol engine churning ~119bhp and 145Nm paired to a 6-speed MT or CVT. This refined unit features a broad power band across the revs and gears. The gear shifter, too, is similar to the Honda City and a charm with short precise movements, only to become much faster with regular use. The commanding stance and Honda City-like driving pleasures make the Elevate a charm to drive. The short turning radius of 5.2M makes this car feel smaller than it looks, while the entire visible hood from the driver seat makes one perceive they’re driving a much larger car. We drove through twisties of Raita hills, Udaipur, Rajasthan, India, and although we could not rip through the latter gears, the car seemed eager in CVT while typically Honda rev-happy in MT. The steering wheel is lightweight, and the overall car behaves beautifully among twisties responding to all the inputs with utmost confidence. Reassuring this driving pleasure was the excellent suspension setup and chassis tune of the Elevate. It would not be wrong to term this car as the most fantastic ride quality and comfort in its segment of cars! The Honda Elevate is just that good. The chassis, the suspension setup and the seats work harmoniously to soak undulations of everything under the wheels. The perception this builds with the visible hood is like driving something significant and nothing but the utmost comfort unmatched by the best competitors.
The ample ground clearance, multi-angle cameras and Honda Sensing add to the ease of driving this beautifully tuned vehicle. We direly wish there were more engine and transmission options available. The car is confident but sometimes can feel soft on the suspensions. Never unsettling the ride comfort or confidence, the neat warnings alerts from Honda Sensing have a subtle tone that is not too intrusive in a relatively peaceful cabin with impressive NVH levels. While the MT shifter and light clutch action are a charm to work with, the paddle shifters on the CVT are one of the most satisfying to use. The latter also sports a sport mode which engages the engine revs to nearly touching the red line each step as it eagerly builds speed, almost mimicking a smaller turbo-charge engine feel. Honda has drastically reduced the rubberband effect on the CVT, and the tune is also more eager and efficient than the MT. The Honda Elevate elevates the Honda line-up and brings a new benchmark to ride quality and cabin comfort paired with a reliable engine locked sanely at a top speed of 160km/h. The car is confident in straight lines, fun to handle across twisties, and easy to drive through all terrains. It features one of the best in-cabin experiences doing it all with minimum body roll and confident body control. The brakes and the camera-featured ADAS - Honda Sensing work admirably. There is an innate bite to the brakes with confident stopping power, and adaptive cruise control also features brake capabilities and alerts. Honda Sensing is similar to the City e-HEV.
Comfort and the perception of luxury
Honda returned to the design boards and sealed the outside of the cabin with some interesting man-made moulds to reduce road, tyre, and nuisance noises. If that was not enough, the most exciting part of the Honda Elevate is the seats. The seats have been designed to work in tandem with the car movements and ensure more cushioning to handle and minimise road impacts. The contours, front seat lumber support, soft thick cushions, leatherette feel, colours, and seat design almost make it feel fine when the car misses on ventilated seats. There is a standard sunroof which functions just like the City. Speaking of which, the steering seems a direct fit from the City e-HEV, along with similar Honda Sensing features with the front camera. Honda claims that Honda Sensing is almost level 2 ADAS, but take that with a pinch of asterisks. The visibility is good with all manual adjustments on the seats and steering, but the visible hood from inside makes one perceive that this car is much larger than it actually is. The interior design features a black dashboard with contrast matte silver finishes around the AC vents, HVAC tactile knobs and a wood finish insert bringing a sense of luxury to the vehicle.
The 10.25-inch mid-mounted floating-style touch infotainment brings nice customisable widgets and wireless Android Auto/Apple CarPlay. Also, it becomes the screen for the LHS-assisted rearview monitor cameras or the multi-angled rear view camera with ultra-wide angle 180-degree, wide-angle 130-degree and top-down displays. The part analogue features a speed counter, while the part digital part of the MID is so coloured and matte, neat enough to camouflage as an analogue rpm meter or showcase tonnes of other animated information, including Honda Sensing warnings. There is an armrest with one of the most cushioned sets among rivals doubling as a storage area with a dedicated bay for wireless charging and actual tactile buttons for most operations, including some for the large touch-infotainment. Including a vanity mirror on the driver’s side, a button-clad steering wheel, and some of the most satisfying paddle shifters on the CVT make the Honda Elevate a relatively feature-loaded pack. However, it misses out on the booklet-level features of some cars in its competition. The rear passengers get AC vents, 12V sockets and some storage, though the miss of type-C ports on the car feels questionable. Still, this car supports wireless everything, including a Honda Connect subscription offered free for the first 5 years for Elevate customers. Overall, with the armrest at its rear sporting two cup holders and all seats featuring one of the best comforts in its class, this car is hard to give miss, especially with the extraordinary suppleness of the ride quality.
Japanese brawn
Car design styles differ from regions around the world. Japanese love their grilles in your face; think of something like Lexus. Following the regional design language, the Honda Elevate features a considerable body style designed with internal safety tests for internal and external human impacts. In isolation, the front fascia looks handsome with a prominent grille, Honda signature chrome moustache like the one on City, LED projectors and DRLs with a massive hood featuring broad haunches visible from outside and in. The 17-inch alloys look good, but after-market wheels would decorate the relatively simple side design. Honda paired our test units with Bridgestone grippy tyres while the spare 16-inch wore Goodyear.
The squircle wheel arches and 220mm ground clearance with overall thick boy dimensions of L x W x H x WB of 4312mm x 1790mm x 1650mm x 2650mm make it segment competitive when it comes to inner and outer space. The rear looks interesting, with dual-line LEDs stretching into the openable hatch, while the small LED fog lamps at the front complement the night view. The boot space of 458L is healthy, and the wide 1100mm boot mouth makes it one of the most spacious boot areas among the competition. The added cameras and angles make this car easy to manoeuvre through tough situations. The stance is Japanese brawn and almost as large as the largest cars in its segment.
Honda Sensing with Lanewatch
1.5L i-VTEC + VTC Petrol engine
6-Speed MT or CVT
119bhp and 145Nm
Wheelbase - 2650mm
Ground Clearance - 220mm
