Bengaluru, July 13 (IANS): Honda Cars India Limited (HCIL) launched its third generation Honda Jazz's petrol and diesel variants in Karnataka on Monday.

"We strongly believe that the Jazz will meet both the rational as well as the aspirational needs of the customers. The all new Jazz will be a key pillar of business and would be instrumental in driving the growth for Honda cars in India," said HCIL senior vice president, marketing and sales, Janaeswar Sen.

The company is offering as many as 12 variants in both diesel and petrol options with the prices ranging from Rs.5,40,900 to Rs.7,98,500 (petrol) and Rs.6,62,900 to Rs.8,75,000 (diesel).

The new Jazz was developed in Honda's R&D centre located in Japan by incorporating inputs received from extensive global market surveys.

HCIL currently has a monthly production capacity of 20,000 cars from its two plants in Bhiwadi (Rajasthan) and Greater Noida (UP) and it is seeking to ramp it up.

"Honda is investing Rs.380 crore to expand production capacity in the Rajasthan plant to achieve an annual output of 3,00,000 lakh cars by 2016," said Sen.

The Japanese auto giant is also planning to increase its dealer network to 300 in 200 cities by 2016 from the existing 232 dealers in 150 cities.

Since the launch of Jazz in Japan in 2001, as many as 5.5 million vehicles were sold in 78 countries. In India, it did not do well, only selling 23,000 between its launch in June 2009 and February 2013.

It was discontinued from 2013 to 2015 and renewed and relaunched in July.

The new Jazz is available in seven new colours and four seating modes.

HCIL has exported 1,750 units of the new Jazz to South Africa from India and plans to export to India's neighbouring low volume car markets like Nepal and others except Pakistan, Sen added.