KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 7 — Honda Malaysia has officially launched the all-new City Hatchback with a total of 2,000 bookings collected since its marketing campaign began in October.

Managing director and chief executive officer Madoka Chujo said the company is set to create another key milestone by offering the popular City model in a hatchback body type.

“This new model will be the trendsetting model with its first-in-segment advanced technology, premium features, versatility with ultra seats configurations, targeting the younger audience that prefers a sporty yet premium hatchback,” she said at the model launching here today.

She said Honda Malaysia targeted to sell 1,000 units of the City Hatchback monthly with deliveries of the petrol models to begin in January.

Chujo said the City Hatchback is offered in four variants — petrol models V, E and S as well as the RS e:HEV hybrid model, with colour options including ignite red metallic, meteoroid gray metallic, platinum white pearl, lunar silver metallic and crystal black pearl.

She said the V variant is priced at RM87,860 on-the-road without insurance, inclusive of the sales and service tax (SST) rebate, E variant at RM83,080 and S variant at RM75,670.

“The price for City Hatchback RS e:HEV hybrid model, which will be made available in early 2022, will be announced closer to the delivery period,” she said.

Honda Malaysia offers an eight-year unlimited-mileage warranty for its lithium-ion battery for the two-motor hybrid powertrain system in the RS e:HEV model.

On another development, Chujo said the pandemic-related disruption and supply chains issues complicated by shortages of semiconductors chips has resulted in a 40 per cent shortages of sales this year from its original 2021’s target for 80,000 units sales.

She said Honda Malaysia, like its global peers, has been struggling to ramp up car production due to the chip shortage.

Ask whether Honda Malaysia has approached local semiconductor-related companies in dealing with the chip shortages, Chujo said the decision to appoint supplier is mainly done by Honda global headquarter in Japan and Honda’s Bangkok-based Asia-Oceania Regional Headquarters in Thailand. — Bernama