The Drive Report : Honda Elevate MT

When it comes to purpose-built, market-specific design, aesthetics are purely a secondary concern.

On paper, the Honda Elevate is an easy sell – a tall SUV based on the beloved Honda City’s platform. An SUV that wasn’t retrofitted to suit Indian customers but rather designed from scratch keeping in mind the particular set of demands placed on a design by India’s driving environment. So it’s recent sales slump can be attributed not to anything inherently lacking in the Elevate, but arguably because, much like before it operates in a very cut-throat segment while alienating some if many die-hard Honda purists who associate the brand with a degree of performance, pizazz and all that jazz. That puts the Honda Elevate between a rock and hard place, which is a shame because there are many aspects that make it an excellent daily driver and more. Starting with.

The Design

When it comes to purpose-built, market-specific design, aesthetics are purely a secondary concern. A design has to solve an existing problem first and given our urban infrastructure, which is patchwork at best, the first problem to solve pertains to driving comfort, easy ingress, egress, visibility and ground clearance. It’s why SUVs aren’t just a mere flavour of the season but a form of personalised mobility that’s here to stay. Keeping that in mind, the Honda Elevate nails its brief. It feels easy to drive around crowded streets, easy to manoeuvre through traffic. Its tall stance allows wafts over pretty much any surface undulation and its flat, blunt beak allows the driver an unobstructed view.

The Elevate continues to feature the same 1.5-litre i-VTec powertrain from the Honda City.

On the aesthetic front, which is always a subjective matter, the Elevate seems to have a far cleaner, unpretentious and fuss-free design than its Korean rivals. Plenty of flat panels echo a certain traditional SUV aesthetic for this soft-roader, while still making it look fresh and unconventional. Still, it is a design governed by functionality and there, its class-leading 2650 mm wheelbase, massive wheel wells and a shoulder-line designed keeping in mind side-impact tests, really work in its favour.

This may not be the most well-equipped cabin but it certainly is the most tasteful.

Performance

The Elevate continues to feature the same 1.5-litre i-VTec powertrain from the Honda City. In terms of specs, it does outgun much of the competition, not including the top-end turbocharged options. Producing 118 bhp of power and 145 NM of torque, it manages to haul the Elevate’s additional weight (150kg over the City) immediately betraying Honda’s performance-oriented leaning through its peppy, rev happy motor. The CVT while being economical does dour the performance a tad bit, causing a fair bit of noise when pushed. In such instances, the 6-speed manual comes to the rescue. It completely changes the character of the Elevate, making it feel playful, responsive and fun. The power seems far more accessible, and despite the short ratios for the initial gears, it’s an SUV that can really dance. The steering feels communicative, the clutch work is light. It’s easily the most fun and value-for-money option in the Elevate variant line-up. Throws feel slick, and although the Elevate truly finds its rhythm higher-up in the revs, the manual transmission can occasionally deliver short-range thrills. The absence of a turbo-charged petrol, while still felt, isn’t felt as keenly when driving the manual.

Another aspect that really works in the Elevate’s favour is how supple the suspension feels. It’s perfectly calibrated for city roads, often refusing to even register some of the more pronounced dips and troughs in the road.

The Honda Elevate continues to have strong fundamentals.

The Cabin

This may not be the most well-equipped cabin but it certainly is the most tasteful. A clean, dual-tone cabin greets you with fabulous tan leather seats that are really comfortable. But that’s more or less where the limit of the cabin’s appeal lies. No ventilated seats, no 360-degree camera, no panoramic – this is a relatively well-designed but ultimately austere cabin. Still, it isn’t without its highlights, which include tactile buttons for temperature control and ADAS functions.

Not quite perfect

The Elevate isn’t entirely without flaws. For starters, the overall noise insulation could be better. I constantly found myself checking to see if the rear windows were ever-so-slightly open, only to find that they weren’t and the cacophony of a city like Mumbai, often crept into the cabin like an uninvited guest. Then there was the infotainment system in the top-end automatic, which isn’t quite up to contemporary standards. For starters the resolution isn’t as clear as you’d expect and even a simple task like connecting the phone proved laborious, despite clearing the cache.

It’s also let down by a slightly lethargic and noisy CVT. Although the rubberband effect is now far less pronounced, those looking for trademark Honda performance are better served with the 6-speed manual.  Another trick that the Elevate misses out on, is the absence of a hybrid powertrain. Given that the hybrid segment has surpassed the EV segment in recent months, it’s a wonder if Honda intends to plonk the hybrid powertrain from the City into the Elevate, although that seems like the most logical course of action if the brand is to offer some kind of an upgrade next year.

VERDICT

The Honda Elevate continues to have strong fundamentals. It’s intelligently designed, practical, fun-to-drive while also being stylish and distinct in its appearance. Yes, it’s a bit low on bells and whistles, but you are getting discounts up to Rs 55,000 at the moment, so there’s that. At the end of the day, it’s still a Honda and with that name comes a certain standard which the Elevate has only upheld.