Honda Motors may sell India JV pie

"We are under discussions with the Siel Group for a positive collaboration," HSCI president and CEO M Takedagawa said at the Auto Expo in New Delhi.

Honda has 99 per cent stake in HSCI while the Sidharth Shriram-promoted Siel Ltd has one per cent stake. Siel Ltd had five per cent stake in HSCI earlier. At the Auto Expo, the carmaker also showcased several hi-tech vehicles including the Honda Civic.

The much-awaited model, which would bridge the gap between Honda's two existing models (City and Accord), would be commercially launched after assessing the market.

Honda Civic has already been launched in UK and Japan. "We are in a preparing stage and are assessing our vendor base, manufacturing capacity and seasonality of demand. We will launch the vehicle (Civic) after all the details are worked out," Rajive Saharia, general manager (marketing), HSCI said.

The new model would be competitively priced, he added. HSCI was formed in 1995 as a joint venture between Honda Motor Co Ltd and Siel Ltd to manufacture Honda passenger cars in India.

The company has invested Rs 150 crore (Rs 1.5 billion) for expanding its manufacturing facility at Greater Noida from the initial 30,000 cars to 50,000 cars per annum this fiscal.

The company is pumping in another Rs 700 crore (Rs 7 billion) to further raise the capacity to almost 100,000 cars per annum by 2010 and launch new models.