Expected Launch Date & Price of Hyundai H800 Hatchback in India

Hyundai H800 Hatchback will be priced under 3 Lakh rupees & come in November to take on the likes of the Maruti Alto and the Chevrolet Spark.

Along with launching the Hyundai H800, the South Korean Automaker is also planning a rapid expansion in its dealer count, especially in India’s hinterland to cover areas which were hitherto untapped by Hyundai.

Hyundai India is planning to add no less than 300 rural sales and service points, across the country, in line with the automaker’s plans of increasing the rural sales outlet count to 1,000. Coming back to the Hyundai H800, the car will feature a three cylinder 800c engine, which Hyundai claims will deliver significantly better power as well as fuel economy than it’s rivals.

We have already put in place 700 rural sales outlets and plan to add 300 more in the next couple of months. These are physical locations built with a small investment and are not the standard brick and mortar model. These will help us get closer to the customer with our executives conducting car demos, test drives and also small repair requirements. With this rural model, we will grow our sales share in these markets to 33 per cent by the end of this year.

Notably, Hyundai India has tasted some success with the Hyundai Verna Fluidic which has raced to the top of sales charts in the Indian C-Segment sedan space. Hyundai’s other big sellers include the Hyundai Santro Xing and the Hyundai i10, which continue to sell strongly. These models have ensured that Hyundai India has gotten its nose ahead of Tata Motors, to emerge as the second biggest car maker in India.

Maruti & Hyundai also give good discount on their cars

In fact, car sales growth slowed to just 1.6 percent in June. This has prompted automakers to throw away some freebies and discounts to encourage sales. Following Honda’s announcement on Monday which dropped the price of the Honda Jazz by a staggering Rs 1.75 lakh now, Maruti Suzuki and Hyundai have joined the fray. 

• Maruti, India’s #1 auto maker has offers rebates of more than Rs 50,000 on Alto, WagonR and Estilo 
• Hyundai Motor India is offering up to Rs 45,000 discount on its popular i10 and Santro compact cars

Honda is also offering a discount of Rs 50,000 on the Honda City which at some time was the segment leader. This comes after the Japanese automaker revised the prices of the Honda City by Rs 66,000 last month. Meanwhile, the rising interest rates have also been one of the factors responsible for the slowdown in the auto sector.

Car makers like Volkswagen are now encouraging customers to buy the Vento petrol sedan by offering loans 6.99 percent interest rate. German premium car makers like Audi and Mercedes Benz are offering zero interest loans on the Audi A4 sedan and the Mercedes Benz C-Class.

Hyundai H800 Small Car can be Launch in Coming Months

Hyundai India might ring in smallest car in India yet, the H800 codenamed small car. Instead of seeing a launch sometime in 2012, the small car could see a launch in the next few months. The recent spurt of spottings of the H800 found testing in and around Chennai also adds credence to this theory of Hyundai trying to wrap up testing on a priority so that it can launch the small car as soon as possible. Hyundai officials in a statement have gone on record saying that the Hyundai small car will be a class leader in terms of both fuel economy and outright performance. Here’s an official statement from Hyundai India’s Arvind Saxena.

We are working on a product that would be best packaged to offer highest fuel efficiency and power in its class

Perhaps, Hyundai India will outfit the H800 with a three pot, 800cc engine with some trickery like variable valve technology in order to achieve the “class leading” power and mileage figures as the new range of petrol engines like the K-Series engines from Maruti have demonstrated that even petrol engines can deliver excellent fuel economy with lower friction between engine components and variable valve technology. Meanwhile, let’s hope that Hyundai also brings out the LPG dual fuel option for the H800 as LPG is one way to off set the higher costs of petrol as the entry level car buyer prioritizes fuel economy over power.