Hyundai i20 dropped for Australia

One of Australia’s cheapest and most popular city runabouts has been withdrawn from the local market, and you can blame the struggling Aussie dollar for it.  

Hyundai has dropped the strong-selling i20 hatch from its line-up after the weak Australian dollar meant the company could no longer make a business case for the European-sourced car.

Exchange rates have also put paid to plans to introduce the smaller i10 hatch, which is also imported from Turkey.

It’s a move that is sure to get the attention of other carmakers in the industry and could eventually lead to upward price pressure at the bargain end of the new car market.

Hyundai chief operating officer John Elsworth said the larger Accent would now become the company’s cheapest car, with a 1.4-litre model that will start at $14,990 plus on-road costs (roughly an extra $2000) for a manual model. An auto will add a further $2000 to the cost. That’s considerably more expensive than the i20, which often dropped to $13,990 driveaway.

The end of the i20 will leave a big hole in the company’s line-up. So far this year, it has notched up 6500 sales. And there is no prospect of a replacement, as the company has indicated it will not be taking an Indian-built version of the car because it wouldn’t meet Australian expectations on safety.

The end of the i20 will leave a big hole in the company’s line-up

But Mr Elsworth said the company was confident it could fill the gap.

“We’ll just have to make it up with other models. It’s just a fact of life the car is gone from our lives,” he said.

“We’ll do our best to make up volume with Accent, I can tell you that,” he said.

He said the company had a big push on Accent in June and had a record month. And he hinted that the company would sharpen its pencil if necessary to get the volume.

“We’ll keep tweaking it as we go and try to find that sweet spot and once we do, we’ll sell some cars,” he said.

Hyundai sold more than 100,000 cars for the first time last year and Mr Elsworth said the company was on track to repeat the performance in 2015.

Mr Elsworth was speaking at the launch of the all-new Tucson SUV, which will replace the company’s top-selling ix35. The ix35 is the second-best selling SUV in the country and Hyundai has its sights on number one with the bigger, more refined replacement.