After successfully taking on market leader Maruti Suzuki in the B and B+ passenger car segments Hyundai is set to strike at the last exclusive bastion of the former.
The Maruti Alto will soon find it uneasy in the A segment as the Hyundai Eon joins in to give it company. Maruti Suzuki sells an average of 25,000-30,000 units of the Alto every month, with six variants of the car.
Internally code-named the ‘HA’, the new Hyundai Eon will challenge the Alto as the only urban entry small car currently available in the Indian market. The Eon is the smallest car ever produced by Hyundai Motor worldwide and the Indian subsidiary gets to launch it exclusively for the market here.
The launch is expected in the second week of October.
A new small car that will fill the slot “between the Tata Nano and the Maruti Alto” is set to be launched by Hyundai Motors India, its Vice-President R Sethuraman told reporters.
Built ground up to suit the Indian buyers’ needs in the A segment, the HA has been constructed using one of Hyundai’s six platforms that it uses for all its cars. Sporting the same ‘Fluidic’ design character that was seen in the i10 and the new Verna, the Eon will stand out in the A and B segments and aim to attract younger buyers.
The Eon will measure under 3.5 metres with Hyundai’s tall boy design to give that extra head room.
The Eon will feature an 800cc engine that generates 56 PS of peak power and 7.65 KgM of peak torque. The gearbox from the Santro has been carried forward into the Eon. The Eon may also be fuelled by LPG and CNG options in future and this makes a lot of sense considering the petrol prices are close to Rs. 70 a litre.
The Eon will join the Santro Xing, the i10 and the i20 forming a quartet of Hyundai offerings in the small car space. The Santro will continue to co-exist with the new offering, though it looks likely that the price of the Eon will be set close and could well prove to be in-house competition.
Info Source: HBL and ET
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