Hyundai drives in compact sedan Aura with price starting at Rs 5.79 lakh

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 BS-VI compliant 1.2-liter diesel, one-liter turbo petrol, and 1.2-liter 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-liter diesel trims are tagged between Rs 7.73 lakh and Rs 9.22 lakh. The one-liter 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 liters (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," Hyundai Motor India MD and CEO SS Kim told PTI. 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.

Kim said that the company, for the time being, would also continue to offer Xcent to the fleet segment. 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 5.82-9.79 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 game-changer product creating new excitement and establish new benchmarks in the automobile industry," Kim said. As per the company, the 1.2-liter petrol variants of Aura come with a fuel efficiency of 20.5 and 20.1 kilometers per liter for manual and AMT versions, respectively.

The 1.2-liter diesel manual trims come with a fuel efficiency of 25.35 km per liter while the AMT versions come with 25.4 km/liter efficiency, it added. The one-liter petrol turbo, which comes with manual transmission only, comes with a fuel efficiency of 20.5 km per liter, 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 7 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 a 17.3 percent market share in the PV segment against 16.3 percent in 2018. Kim said the company also remained a 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 parent Hyundai Motor Company's (HMC) global sales. "The company is now the third-largest contributor in HMC's global sales," he added.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)