Hyundai Elantra

The Hyundai Elantra has emerged as a steady seller in the slow moving D-segment in India. Known for its stylish looks and fancy equipment, the Elantra has been able to sell itself as a good option for Indian car buyers looking for a premium sedan. The Korean car maker has now decided to replenish the Elantra’s appeal by bringing in the next generation Elantra, also known as the Avante in global markets, to India.

The Elantra continues with the fluidic philosophy of design but the curves are a bit conservative when compared to the existing car. Built on a new platform, the 2016 Elantra is be wider and longer and gets the horizontally slatted hexagonal grille in the front. The headlamps are projector units and have embedded LED DRLs with boomerang shaped mesh vents on the air dam housing the fog lamps. The coupe-ish roofline continues into the chiselled boot which now gets beautiful tail lamps inspired from the Elite i20.

The cabin is dressed beige and black hues unlike the black with silver accent interior of the global car. Hyundai is known to stuff its cars with a feature list that stumps the competition and the new Elantra will continue with it. Push-button start, rain-sensing wipers, auto dimming internal mirrors and electrically foldable wing mirrors and more such gadgets are all expected to be a part of the standard equipment. The top-spec car gets ventilated front seats – something that even some of the premium executive sedans miss out on.

It comes with ABS and EBD standard across all variants along with dual front airbags. The SX option gets six airbags. Automatic transmission cars get an electronic stability program along with hill hold control.

Hyundai continues to offer the Elantra with existing 1.6-litre diesel engine. The four cylinder turbocharged engine develops 126bhp of power and 260Nm of torque and comes mated to a six-speed manual gearbox and also with a six speed automatic option. The petrol option is a brand new engine, a 2.0-litre inline four cylinder naturally aspirated mill. It churns out 150bhp of power at 6200rpm and 192Nm of torque at 4000rpm. This mill also comes mated to a six-speed manual gearbox and a six-speed automatic torque converter transmission.

The new Hyundai Elantra will continue to compete with the other D-segment sedans like Skoda Octavia, Chevrolet Cruze, Toyota Corolla Altis and the Volkswagen Jetta. As for the price, Hyundai has priced the Elantra aggressively and it now starts below the Toyota Corolla.