According to Tarun Garg of Hyundai India, the sunroof is now a ‘critical feature’ across the brand’s model range.
Even though Hyundai wasn’t the first company to introduce a sunroof in mass market cars, due to its sheer sales volume, the Korean carmaker has played an important role in popularising this feature in India. First made available with hatchbacks like the i10 and i20 back in 2008-’09, the company, as of today, offers a sunroof in no less than seven models.
- Younger buyers are demanding more features
- Over one-third Hyundai models get sunroof
- Over 60 percent Cretas sold with sunroof
“Forty-one percent of our buyers are now less than 35 years of age,” said Tarun Garg, director of Sales, Marketing and Service, Hyundai Motor India, in an interview with Autocar India. “Customers, especially youngsters, are preferring more and more features. Sunroof has become a very critical feature as far as Hyundai cars are concerned and 37 percent of all Hyundai sales are with sunroof.”
That’s a big number considering Hyundai has mass market products in its portfolio too. Also, if you look at models like the Creta that number is larger still.
Hyundai Creta
“Sixty percent of Cretas sold are with a sunroof,” noted Garg. While the previous-generation Creta offered a single-pane sunroof only towards the end of its lifecycle, the current generation took things to a whole new level with the inclusion of a massive panoramic sunroof. In our review, we’d mentioned “panoramic sunroof is sure to draw a lot of customers”, and it appears that customers have taken a liking towards it.
Hyundai Venue
Lower down the price list, the Venue too has a lot of customers opting for a sunroof. In its pre-facelift iteration, the sunroof was reserved for the turbo-petrol and diesel variants. However, with the recently launched facelift, Hyundai added a new variant with the 1.2-litre petrol-manual engine that features a sunroof, taking the count of sunroof-equipped variants to five out of 11. “Forty-six percent of Venue sales are with a sunroof,” revealed Garg.
The most affordable Venue model to be offered with the sunroof is the 1.2-litre petrol-manual SX variant priced at Rs 10.70 lakh, which doesn’t even get alloy wheels. What’s interesting is that when launched in 2019, the most affordable offering to be equipped with a sunroof was the 1.0-litre turbo-petrol manual SX variant that was priced at Rs 9.54 lakh.
The sunroof range
The i20 hatchback is the most affordable Hyundai to be equipped with a sunroof – Rs 8.81 lakh (for the 1.2L MT Asta variant). Its stablemates like the Venue compact SUV, the Verna sedan and Kona Electric also get a single-pane sunroof, while the larger SUV range comprising of the Creta, Alcazar and Tucson get a panoramic unit. Interestingly, of all the connected car and voice control features, Garg said the ‘Open Sunroof’ command is the most used, along with switching on the AC.
(All prices ex-showroom, India)
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