From language affinity to the Head of its Advanced Design, Chohee Park, donning a saree at its latest car launch event on Thursday, Hyundai Motor India (HMIL), the second-largest carmaker in the country, pressed hard on using soft power to secure its position in the Indian market.

The company’s latest Venue compact sports utility vehicle (SUV) has features that support ten Indian regional languages, including Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali, Punjabi, Hindi and Tamil, and also Korean language, apart from English. These multiple languages support work on the audio system and also help in voice-enabled commands to the car.

It is loaded with features in safety, technology and also in connectivity, wherein there are over 60 Bluelink connected car features including advanced auto collision notification, road side assistance, stolen vehicle immobilisation, remote vehicle status and location based services, to name a few.

Chohee Park, HOD, Hyundai Advanced Design, Hyundai India

Chohee Park, HOD, Hyundai Advanced Design, Hyundai India | Photo Credit: KAMAL NARANG

The new Venue comes at a price range of ₹7.53 lakh to ₹12.57 lakh (all introductory prices ex-showroom across India). “The new Venue has 12 languages – 10 our regional and two foreign – English and Korean. With K Pop culture catching up in India among youngsters, and also with feedback from our customers where they are looking for more from their cars, such an introduction will help us go nearer to the customers. Hyundai’s philosophy has always been ‘let the customer decide’. That is why we are also giving so many trims in each vehicle,” Tarun Garg, Director (Sales, Marketing and Service), HMIL, told BusinessLine, on the sidelines of the launch here.

When asked about Tata Motors taking second position in monthly sales in December 2021 and May, he said, “We are still number two on every which you look at – whether calendar year, financial year... the monthly numbers wouldn’t matter so much. We also fully understand that everyone is trying to do their best. At Hyundai, in the past three challenging years, we never let the accelerator down in terms of launches.”

He said as an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) for the last 26 years in India, customers also want new products, new technologies ... so the company will continue on that path. Hyundai’s products also have more Indian touch for its customers here than Korea, and most of the products are made India specific.