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Hyundai Palisade And Kia Telluride Could Come To India
Speaking with Autocar, Hyundai India’s director of sales, Tarun Garg, said that Hyundai is considering bringing the Palisade to India. However, it’s not a burning priority but a rapid increase in enquiries could expedite the process. Here’s what Garg said:
“Hyundai is assessing the feasibility of launching the Palisade in India. We’ll need to see which route we can take with it, if the market is ready and what kind of volumes we’d be looking at. A decision on a model like this is critical because one has to take the import duties into account, and if we choose to localise it, we would need certain volumes. We will take a decision on it at the right time. An increase in customer enquiries will expedite our decision-making process”
The Palisade is currently not available in countries where the steering is on the right. But Hyundai is working on that for Australian and South African markets. Once that is ready, the demand will dictate whether to import the SUV or assemble it.
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2020 Kia Telluride
Opinion
Since Hyundai Palisade and Kia Telluride utilize the same platform and powertrains, its Kia sibling could also come to India. If there’s enough demand to justify local production/assembly, then it would not be difficult to make both, Kia and Hyundai, versions of the SUV. Kia is also lately flexing its ‘world car of the year’ muscle with the Telluride in India. There are 3 videos of the SUV on Kia India’s Youtube channel. Clearly, Kia is also, at least, considering the Telluride and Soul electric crossover for India.
Bringing in both the models through local production route will make it a lot more sense than just bringing one. 2 rebadged cars enjoy better economies of scale than just one even if there’s some cannibalization. Kia and Hyundai already have the Seltos and Creta, which share the underpinnings. Together, the Palisade and Telluride could end Toyota Fortuner’s reign, which has dominated the full-size SUV segment with some competition from Ford Endeavour.
Meanwhile, MG is also looking at the full-size 3-row SUV market and bringing in the Gloster. Volkswagen and Skoda also have their 3-row SUVs in the form of Tiguan AllSpace and Skoda Kodiaq.
However, the downward spiralling economy could ruin customer interest in larger SUVs at all price points. Sedans and hatchbacks offer better value than SUV. For instance, the previous-generation Creta was based on the last-gen Verna. It offered the same powertrains and transmission but fewer features at a considerably higher price. And still, the Creta outsold Verna by a huge margin.
Mahindra Pushes eKUV100 Deliveries, eXUV300 Launch In 2021
Mahindra eKUV100
Speaking with CarAndBike, Mahindra’s chief of sales and marketing, Veejay Ram Nakra said,
“The eXUV300 is still sometime away, it wasn’t this financial year. I think we have opportunity to recover time on that. But clearly we will see some impact on the eKUV100 given the fact that it is still due for commercial availability. While we had already launched the eKUV100 at the Auto Expo, we had said that the commercial availability of the vehicle was due for later this year. We could see a little slip on that and there will be delays.”
The eKUV100 costs Rs. 8.25 lakh. Its electric motor makes 54.5PS of power and 120Nm of torque. It has a range of 120km from its 15.9kWh battery pack. The eXUV300 will compete with the Tata Nexon electric. It will have a range of over 300km from its 40kWh battery pack.
Mahindra eXUV300
Meanwhile, the Mahindra e2o Plus is out of the door. Even after bringing in the 4-door variant of the tiny electric car, the sales didn’t pick up enough. Mahindra removed it pricing details from its website several months ago. The current line up of Mahindra electric cars includes eVerito, eSupro and Treo electric.