WAITING PERIODS OF VERNA FLUIDIC AND I20 DIESEL CARS TO GO DOWN AS HYUNDAI INDIA CRANKS UP PRODUCTION

The Verna Fluidic sedan has been a runaway hit for Hyundai India, so much so that the car maker is struggling to meet demand in India wit waiting periods for the diesel engined model stretching to over 6 months in many cases. With competition from the likes of the Sunny diesel sedan and the Skoda Rapid rising, Hyundai India cannot afford the long waiting periods as customers might simply switch to cars with lesser waiting periods. To ensure that this doesn’t happen, Hyundai India is aggressively ramping up capacity at its Sriperumbudur plant, off Chennai.

The car maker can now produce 10,500 units of the Verna diesel and i20 diesel cars every month, which is up from the current 7,000 units. This increase in capacity by 33% means that the waiting periods for both the Verna Fluidic and the i20 Fluidic will go down in the coming months, bringing much respite to prospective buyers. Getting a handle on the waiting periods  of the 2012 i20 Fluidic is particularly important for Hyundai India as many potential new Swift diesel buyers might switch to the i20 Fluidic if in case the waiting period is low. Currently, the biggest downside of the new Swift diesel is the 6 months long waiting period.

Hyundai has recently launched the i20 Fluidic hatchback in India, with a frenzy of variants, designed to appeal to a wide spectrum of customers with a wide spectrum of price points. The facelifted model comes with a host of new features along with a refreshed exterior to bring the car up to times with the competition. Similarly, with the Verna Fluidic too, Hyundai followed a variant heavy approach, which has stood the car maker in good stead as the c-segment sedan raced to the top of the sales charts within months of its launch in the Indian car market.

The Verna Fluidic is available with four engine options, a 1.4 liter petrol engine, a 1.6 liter petrol engine, a 1.4 liter diesel engine and a 1.6 liter diesel engine. While the 1.4 liter and 1.6 liter petrol engines are mated to a five speed gearbox, the 1.4 liter diesel engine comes with a 6 speed gearbox and so does the 1.6 liter diesel engine. Also, the top end petrol and diesel engines feature a 4 speed automatic gearbox as optional. In case of the i20 Fluidic, the car offers three engines, two petrol and one diesel. The 1.2 Liter petrol engine is the base variant and is paired to a 5 speed gearbox. The 1.4 liter engine is mated to a 5 speed gearbox with a 4 speed automatic gearbox as an option. The diesel engine gets the 6 speed manual gearbox as standard.