Hyundai drives in compact sedan Aura with price starting at Rs 5.79 lakh
Hyundai India will continue to retail the Xcent compact sedan for fleet operators at the moment.
Hyundai Motor India on Tuesday launched a new compact sedan Aura, priced between Rs 5.79 lakh and Rs 9.22 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi), as it looks to consolidate its position in the segment which is currently dominated by the likes of Maruti Dzire and Honda Amaze.
Aura comes with a BS-VI compliant 1.2-litre diesel, one-litre turbo petrol, and 1.2-litre petrol powertrains.
The 1.2 petrol versions of Aura have priced between Rs 5.79 lakh and Rs 8.04 lakh, while the 1.2-litre diesel trims are tagged between Rs 7.73 lakh and Rs 9.22 lakh. The one-litre turbo petrol is priced at Rs 8.54 lakh. The petrol AMT trims are priced at Rs 7.05 lakh and Rs 8.04 lakh, while the diesel versions with similar technology are tagged at Rs 8.23 lakh and Rs 9.22 lakh. The petrol 1.2-litre (CNG) version is priced at Rs 7.28 lakh.
"The model would help us improve performance in the compact sedan segment which has long been dominated by Dzire and Amaze for a decade now," SS Kim, MD and CEO, Hyundai Motor India said.
The company's current product offering in the segment, Xcent hasn't fared that well and the new model would help it do much better, he added.
He added that the model is also being upgraded to conform to BS-VI emission norms. Aura will compete with brands like Maruti Suzuki Dzire, Honda Amaze, and Ford Aspire, which are priced between Rs 5.82 and Rs 9.79 lakh, in the compact sedan segment.
The compact sedan segment in the country is around 3.4 lakh units per annum.
"The model will be a game-changer product creating new excitement and establish new benchmarks in the automobile industry," Kim said.
As per the company, the 1.2-litre petrol variants of Aura come with a fuel efficiency of 20.5 kmpl and 20.1 kmpl for manual and AMT versions, respectively.
The 1.2-litre diesel manual trims come with a fuel efficiency of 25.35 kmpl, while the AMT versions come with 25.4 kmpl efficiency, it added.
The one-litre petrol turbo, which comes with manual transmission only, comes with a fuel efficiency of 20.5 kmpl, HMIL said.
The vehicle also comes with various features like wireless charger, driver rearview monitor, air curtain, among others. When asked to comment on the company's overall sales outlook for 2020, Kim said that with new models lined up, the firm would like to do much better than last year when its sales had declined by seven percent.
"We strongly believe that with Aura, new Creta, and other models coming in this year, we can do better and continue our momentum this year," he added.
He said the new models would also help the company to improve its overall market share in the domestic passenger vehicle segment. Hyundai ended the last year with 17.3 percent market share in the PV segment against 16.3 percent in 2018.
Kim said the company also remained the leader in passenger vehicle (PV) exports last year, with dispatches of 1.8 lakh units to global markets. He added that HMIL now contributes 10 percent to the parent Hyundai Motor Company's (HMC) global sales.
"The company is now the third-largest contributor in HMC's global sales," he added.
(Edited by Suman Singh)
