Hyundai is ready to launch the new version of the 5 year old Hyundai Elantra, the all new-Avante. Elantra, with its dark alley styling, was a big failure in India though.

Another reason was that customers associated Hyundai with value-for-money small cars. Luxury and the Hyundai brand just did not go together. Sales of the Accord-competitor Hyundai Sonata has also been lukewarm. The new Hyundai Avante is expected to hit the roads next month, and Hyundai hopes its fortunes will change for the better.

The company decided to launch Avante as Elantra was the only executive car from Hyundai in India, and it had lost a substantial market share in that segment.

“It was in mid of 2007 that we decided to phase out Elantra, which had been in India since 2003. And with Avante replacing Elantra across the globe, it is most likely to replace Elantra in India as well,” says the company spokesperson Rajiv Mitra.

The Hyundai Avante has already made its way in the American and Korean market. It will be available in India in both petrol and diesel versions. The petrol engine will be a 2000cc unit and the diesel counterpart will have a 1600cc CRDi engine.

The Avante would be priced between Rs 10 lakh and Rs 12 lakh so as to place in the D-segment in the likes of Toyota Corolla, Honda Civic, Chevrolet Optra and Skoda Octavia which will be its competition too.

The second car Hyundai will be launching soon in India will be the new i30, following on the success of the Hyundai i20 and i10 in India.

The Hyundai i30 was initially launched at the Toyota Motor Show for the Japanese market, but after receiving a tremendous response from the Indian market for the i20, it is being considered for an Indian debut too.

According to sources, i30 is under active consideration and Hyundai India is doing feasibility studies to determine its potential in the country, as it was initially built for the European market. This new car is a premium 5-door hatch back designed by the European Hyundai team in Germany.

It also has the option for three petrol and two diesel engines and conceives options for automatic and manual transmissions.

The Hyundai i30 is sold in United Kingdom as a replacement for the Hyundai Accent (Verna).

After the success of i10 and a record breaking 2000 bookings for the new i20 launched in India last month, Hyundai can release a whole range of ‘i’ cars and has all the reasons to be optimistic about the success of the new i30 witnessing the past. Hyundai is also expected to release the i40 as a replacement for Sonata but not anytime soon.

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