Hyundai has finished production of its entry-level hatchback Santro; The reason is here

Hyundai Motor India, the country’s second-largest automobile maker, has stopped production of its entry-level hatchback Santro at its Tamil Nadu plant due to low demand. The Hyundai Santro, launched in India in 1998, was the first car to be introduced to an Indian customer by a Korean carmaker.

The automaker sold first-gen models until 2014. However, after a break of almost 4 years, it brings back Santro in October 2018 with a new-genre update. But while the company’s sales did not meet its expectations for the model’s resurgence in 2018, Hyundai has now decided to plug on the hatchback and consolidate its resources and further reduce supply chain constraints.

Moreover, according to the report, even though the petrol offer of Santro has been discontinued, the CNG variant will continue to be sold. There are also reports that dealerships will still sell the petrol version until the stock runs out.

Hyundai has sold about 2,000 units on the Santro FY22. Interestingly, this hatchback was at one time one of Hyundai’s best-selling cars and accounted for about 76 percent of total sales.

In 2018, Hyundai’s revised Santro sold for between Rs 3.9 lakh and Rs 5.5 lakh The new Santro received a new design signal and was available with a factory-fitted CNG option for its 1.1-liter petrol engine.

Hyundai has even tried to position the Santro hatchback at the top end of the budget segment and has praised it with features like a touchscreen infotainment system and rear AC vents. However, the car’s entry-variant was still on the cutting edge of price and lacked basic features like factory-fitted AC. Hyundai also priced higher variants of the newly launched Santro over the Grand i10, which was discontinued but had a wider and more powerful 1.2-liter engine.

Later in 2019, Hyundai tried to replace the lower variants of the Santro with offers like the country’s entry-level hatchback segment – Alto and Renault Kwid. But due to the advent of strict BS-6 emission rules, higher input costs have been converted to higher prices.

Currently, due to the COVID-19 epidemic, the shortage of semiconductors, and the rising cost of input material in the wake of the Russia-Ukraine war, almost all car manufacturers have increased the price of their respective models by up to 30 percent.

And with the government’s forthcoming order to offer six airbags as standard, the cost of the car would have gone up further, forcing Hyundai to increase the price of hatchbacks. Also, the growing choice of Indian consumers towards SUVs or compact SUVs could be one of the reasons for plugging in Hyundai’s hatchback Santro.