Hyundai’s Ertiga rival coming next year

Hyundai has been planning to launch an MPV and now the company is ready with this new multi-purpose vehicle, scheduled to be launched in 2016. The new MPV has been designed in the company’s Hyderabad R&D facility, with inputs from South Korean plant. The Hyundai MPV is based on the Grand i10 platform and will be making its way into India next year.

India will be the first market to get this MPV and the Korean automaker is also targeting commercial market with this vehicle. The Hyundai brand at the moment doesn’t have an MPV. The Hyundai MPV will be powered by a 1.4-litre petrol engine and the diesel is likely to be the same size, 1.4-litre U2 diesel engine. Both these will be compete with the Ertiga, which is Maruti’s MPV.

Hyundai is now even considering a sub 4-metre SUV, which will be competing with the Ford Ecosport. This will be smaller than the Creta, and will get the same set of petrol and diesel engines like the MPV. Hyundai has been highly successful with the Creta and it will want to continue with the similar momentum for other products too.

“We have finalised the design and other aspects of the MPV and it is expected to hit the market next year. The auto industry is growing at 5-6% annually with most of the additional sales being driven by new products. At HMIL, most of the growth is coming from Creta and i20 (Elite and Active). We are monitoring the market situation very closely. True, buyers are preferring cars with SUV styling but we have not firmed up plans on the mini-SUV yet.” HMIL chief coordinator (sales & marketing) young Jin Ahn said to ET.