Honda has stopped taking bookings for the Jazz premium hatchback. The company will focus on clearing stock and catering to deliveries of existing bookings. At present, the waiting period of the Jazz ranges between 2 – 6 months depending on the variant and dealer location.
After the price revision of the Jazz was announced in August 2011, the demand for the Jazz went up. Jazz had a waiting period of 4 months since September 2012. The company sold an average of 400 units of Jazz in the subsequent months.
Thailand flood affects production
Honda Siel Cars India (HSCI) imports critical components from Thailand in order to manufacture its cars in India. Since Thailand was badly affected by floods during December 2011, the production of its cars including the Jazz, were temporarily stopped due to shortage of component supplies. Also see our Honda Jazz video review!
The company resumed the production of its City sedan in January 2012 and the Brio small car in February 2012 while the production of Jazz was scheduled during the end of February. Earlier, Honda stated that it will achieve its peak production of 9,000 – 10,000 units by the end of March 2012. Achieving peak production will help Honda to quickly deliver the cars to its waiting customers.
Second plant in Rajasthan
When Honda achieves full production capacity of 1.2 lakh units at its Greater Noida plant, it will consider setting up an assembly unit at its second plant in Rajasthan which currently produces auto components.
The second plant will have an initial production capacity of 60,000 units per annum. With 600 acres of space, the company may also look into scaling up the production capacity to 2 lakh units per annum depending on the market demand for its small car Brio. Once the second plant dishes out cars, we expect a nil waiting period for Honda cars.