South Korean carmaker Hyundai on Monday (November 14) launched the much anticipated SUV Hyundai Tucson in India at an initial price starting from Rs 18.99 lakh (ex-showroom, Delhi).
The company has positioned the car between its other best-selling SUV Creta and its flagship SUV SantaFe as it feels the SUV segment is one of the fasted growing segments in the Indian passenger vehicle market.
Y.K. Koo, managing director and chief executive officer of Hyundai Motor India Limited said, "The aspiration of owning an SUV is a global phenomenon. In India, the overall SUV market is growing by 32 per cent. The premium SUV market in India is growing at much faster pace at 51 per cent. We want to offer Indian consumers a wide range of SUV cars."
Hyundai has sold more than 4.5 million units of Tucson globally. The car was first launched in India in 2005 but was taken off the road due to weak demand.
Hyundai made a big impact on the growing SUV market in July 2015 when it launched the Creta which at present contributes 20 per cent to its overall sales.
"Due to the strong demand, we have increased the Creta production three times since its launch in July 2015 and October 2016", Koo said.
Under the hood, the new Tucson comes with a 2.0-litre petrol and a 2.0-litre diesel engine. Both engines will be available with a 6-speed manual or a 6-speed automatic gearbox.
Hyundai claims that the petrol variants return a fuel efficiency of 13.03 km per litre in the manual trim and 12.95 km per litre in the automatic version. The diesel variants, on the other hand, are said to return 18.42 km per litre in the manual and 16.38 km per litre in the automatic trim.
BW Reporters
The author is Senior Correspondent with BW Businessworld
