Honda Elevate Review

Well it depends on individual perspective IMHO.

For example while picking up the Jazz CVT back in 2019 my other two options were i20 & Baleno CVT. Mind you all three were ~12L OTR Bangalore & both those were absolute market darlings doing 5 digit number MoM while Jazz was crawling at like 1-2k probably. And as expected I didnt even consider the Jazz at the start when I initiated my search.

While i20 CVT was feature rich, it wasn't frugal(BHPian owners shared horrific numbers back then in single digit), had failed GNCAP test(unstable bodyshell) and felt cramped compared to competition. Baleno CVT was supremely frugal compared to rest, had ample space but felt light & again the platform had already churned out unstable bodyshell cars. So I was left with only Jazz which was somewhere sitting in the middle ground. While not as feature-rich as i20, it did have Ok features(cruise control/paddleshifters/electrically closing mirrors etc) which I needed. While not being as frugal as Baleno, was better than i20 CVT. And what tipped the scale in the Honda's favor was AMAZE being rated with a 'stable bodyshell'. That gave a confidence that more premium Jazz should do similar atleast & it was proven later by GNCAP.

Doesn't mean it was a better car overall. It just worked better for me back then.

Similarly for Elevate I feel it will be an inoffensive middleground for folks who prefer something which does most of the things OK. No matter how much people harp about turbo engines, fact remains majority sales for competition comes from NA engines and in that department Honda does just fine. They anyways don't have the capacity to churn out cars like Koreans, so would be happy doing 3-4k per month IMO.

Cyrus more or less attests to the same idea. This is a 'NICE' car, not wow and should ideally find decent takers if priced right(sub 20L OTR for top end).

Great review as always, but the missing features yet the high price will be deal breaker for many.

I don't understand the point of bringing a new vehicle if you're gonna omit so many features, some of which can be easily shared from the parts bin. (Ref: City Hybrid)

Anyone noticed the lack of ECON(green leaf) button next to the CVT gear lever? They're offering a dummy cap instead. Wonder why.

From my experience of driving a City CVT (5th gen), the performance of Elevate should not be as bad as non hybrid GV AT. Assuming Elevate to be 10-15% inferior in comparison to City CVT (weight and aerodynamics disadvantage with Elevate), it should still be pretty more potent than the GV non hybrid. But if it comes to performance comparison with Taigun 1.0 AT, the turbo motor would result in better acceleration and it should be about 20-30 % better. The TC too would fare better in this regards.

That said the ASS and reliability factor would take a massive hit with Taigun. Not only that, the pathetic AC, power window reliability issues, rattles etc. are quite frequent with the VW 2.0 India specific cars.

To conclude between the two, I would anyday choose the Elevate.

OT
Yaris was pretty well loaded IMO, considering it was 2017 launch. Paddle shifters (rarity back then), auto headlamps, auto wipers,Electric driver seat adjust, Front parking sensors, rear sunshade, 7 airbags (many executive sedans still offer 6!),3 point rear seatbelts,TPMS, ESP,HSA, ambient lighting,all wheel disc brakes, rear fog lamps, IR cut glasses, sound absorbing glasses (NVH was surreal!), Rear AC with ambient lighting, A separate rear Aircon unit (not just vent), Cooled Glovebox, Gesture control for touchscreen and what not! By 2017 standards, this was a pretty well loaded car IMO. Heck, just check, the Elevate, a 2023 launch, still misses out on many of the aforementioned features.

Android Auto too was added in 2019 I guess.

I know it's off topic for this thread. I agree that Yaris was over priced. Looks are subjective. But it isn't really loaded. I have a VX. It doesn't have auto dimming IRVM, auto up down windows (only driver), no Android Auto or Wireless Charging, not even a lane change indicator. Not sure if these were added later, my 2018 model doesn't have. It does have better space compared to Vento and Rapid, but a bit less than Honda City Or Ciaz. And I found the seats to be the best quality compared to it's peers.

Back to Elevate, if it gets its pricing right, it should get it's numbers going similar to Amaze. Some products don't excel at one particular thing, but the sum is greater than the parts - like the NZ cricket team who almost always perform well on the big Stage - and that's why Amaze continues to sell. I hope Elevate turns out to be that kind of product. Time will tell!

Software update for the AC has fixed the issue if incase few cars had it, several members on the forum have reported the same.
Power window just requires a software update. New models won't have it.
Rattles have been fixed in most of the cars being manufactured after Aug-Sep 22.

I would suggest test driving both Elevate and Taigun before making a decision. Taigun will have superior safety, driving dynamics and good to have features like ventilated seats when compared to Elevate though it misses on ADAS.

That's when he drove at 60 kmph speed. So it can't be a figure for reference.

With the Koreans claiming a 6 to 9 month waiting period for their products and them dissuading customers from buying the base models, there's a good market for Honda to eat into the 10-15l ex showroom price gap.

The people who are tired of waiting for the Creta E/EX/S variants and Seltos HTE/HTK/HTK+ variants now have a chance to swap their bookings for a Elevate V. The VTVT 1.5NA variants of those are a step below the 1.5litre DOHC unit on the Honda. Reliability must be infinitely better considering Koreans hushing up oil issues in diesel and fuel pump failures

I'm eagerly waiting to see this car in person because this is why I deferred buying my Creta S hoping Honda would launch a City equivalent Csuv. I like the butch front and not so much the rear lights(which look like they're from WRV). But the paint finish in red and blue look miles better than the Koreans already which isn't a shocker.


Edit: I just noticed this car looks a lot similar to the 2023 BRV from South East Asian market. So did Honda rework the rear door panels and boot area of the BRV and call it the Elevate in order to avoid naming it BRV because the nameplate failed last time? Would that explain why this one has a bigger boot than the Koreans?

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Most of the surprise has come from the ride and handling against the expectations as a surprise considering the high high 220 mm GC. But still it's not any benchmark for ride and handling with ride going to GV and handling to German counterparts. So the glee is actually limited to the unexpectedly good outcome from Elevate.

It could be a choice for those who are particular with the brand and are happy with what it offers now as a new car.

FE seems have taken a serious beating.

My guess is that they left the gap for curtain airbags to deploy effectively. Well, the passengers wouldn’t want them to deploy on their heads (if they are sitting that close to the door). I am not an expert though, just a wild guess.

One of my colleagues owns a Taigun 1.0. He too had the aforementioned AC update. He claims it worked for few months post which the AC is back to throwing tantrums. I too had witnessed the improvement and gradual decline in cooling again.

Point is these things do happen with VW/Skoda cars (especially 2.0 India specific cars) and people pass it off as normal/one off incidents, since they are habitual to the irritants. With Japs and Koreans these issues are way less frequent and hence despite the many shortcomings there are still many takers in this thread itself for the Elevate.

You are totally wrong, it has level 2 ADAS.
here is some ADAS education: https://www.topgearmag.in/features/t...adas-explained

Unless Honda really HITS with the pricing, there is really no reason to pick this over the new Seltos or maybe the Hyryder.

First they did not bring their Turbo (they sell Turbo RS in Pakistan) . Alternately they could have plonked 1.8 NA which was there in Civic. They even did not tune 1.5 for compensating additional weight. And now they limit the speed. When competition has moved ahead, such apathy in their strategy proves their poor commitment to India. Any other serious manufacturer would have give their best considering this is their last chance.

If a Car's worth was determined by the feature list on offer, the Chinese cars could be the greatest cars ever. Fortunately a Car is more than the sum of its feature list.

I still stick to my stand here. We could list out a 100 more features that Seltos has over Elevate, but the Honda scores in areas where it matters more.

The most important point remains that ADAS is one of the most important and life saving Innovations in recent times and something that commands a Premium price.

And just to clarify, Honda Elevate has the ADAS Level 2, which is Camera Based. However, in a recent ADAS comparison, Honda City performed as well and even better than some Radar based ADAS systems, which is a testatement to Honda's engineering. And all the reviewers in videos today have done the Elevate's testing in rainy conditions and it worked perfectly.



And apart from ADAS, in an apple to apple comparison with Seltos IVT and having gone through all the reviews today, Honda Elevate is:

- Built better than Seltos
- Rides much better than Seltos
- Has much comfortable seats than Seltos
- Handles as well or better than Seltos
- The legendary IVtec NA CVT engine arguably performs better than Seltos' NA IVT engine
- Unarguably shall have better Fuel Efficiency numbers Than Seltos IVT Irrespective of Arai numbers
- More Leg room than Seltos
- Bigger Boot than Seltos
- Higher Ground Clearance than Seltos
- Overall reliability shall be better than Seltos
- Resale value of Honda CVT shall be better than Seltos IVT

And I believe all the above are the ones which shall matter more to most people than an exhaustive feature list and IMHO the Honda Elevate CVT shall still be better than Seltos IVT even if it commands a premium of 1 lakh over it at 20 Lakhs on road.

PS: I have nothing against the Seltos and we have booked the new XLine for the family as we needed a Diesel Auto. But if we were fine with NA Petrol + CVT option, would take the Honda Elevate any day.