Hyundai Motor India (HMIL), country’s second largest passenger vehicles (PVs) maker, has said that the expansion of its Chennai plant and the upcoming plant in Talegaon will bridge the gap between is sales and Maruti Suzuki India (MSIL)‘s sales.

Currently, there is a huge gap between the number one player MSIL, which is selling around 1.20 lakh units a month, on an average, while HMIL is selling around 50,000 units a month in the domestic market. In April 2023 to February this year, MSIL sold 16,07,163 units of PVs in the domestic market, while HMIL sold 5,62,720 units during the same period.

The company has recently announced an investment of around ₹33,000 crore to expand it production capacity to one-million units and launch of new products.

“We are increasing our production capacity in our existing plant and then in the upcoming plant in Pune (Talegaon). It depends on the size of the market. I see the Indian market is getting stronger, in terms of GDP, India will be the third (in the world) in short term and also currently the third largest automobile market. According to the market size increase, we will update our target,” Unsoo Kim, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, HMIL, told businessline.

On exports, he said the global auto industry is totally changing and all the countries are focusing on manufacturing facilities in India including the US.

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“Some of the governments (like in India) are attracting all the manufacturers. However, West Asia, Africa and Latin America are the markets for India...may be it will get extensive, even though they want their own factories in these countries. We are developing a lot of models (products) for them, so it will help to increase our volume (from India),” Kim said.

Creta N-Line

Meanwhile, the company launched the sporty and performance-inspired SUV, Hyundai Creta N-Line, priced between ₹16.82 lakh and ₹20.30 lakh as introductory prices (ex-showroom). It is powered with 1.5l Turbo GDi Petrol engine with a six-speed manual transmission (N Line Exclusive) and seven-speed dual clutch transmission (DCT), the company said.

The Creta N-Line offers over 70 bluelink connected car features and comes loaded with 42 standard safety features and over 70 advanced safety features and also dashcam with dual camera, HMIL said.

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The N-Line category of vehicles are inspired from the World Rally Championship (WRC) and Creta N-Line will strengthen Hyundai’s N-Line portfolio and resonate with the ambitions of new age Indian buyers. This is the third car in HMIL’s portfolio after i20 N-Line and Venue N-Line.

“In 2021, we sold 3,196 units of N-Line. In 2022, we sold 7,560 N-Line and in 2023, we sold 9,718 N-Line. Overall we sold 22,000 N-Line. The sales numbers are increasing. At the same time, frankly, I don’t think volume is an objective in N-Line. We understand it’s a niche market,” Tarun Garg, Chief Operating Officer, HMIL, said.

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