Hyundai i30 hatch sales to be paused

Little more than a week after re-opening sales of the i20 N and i30 N hot hatches, Hyundai has confirmed it will temporarily close the order books on its popular i30 hatchback ahead of a switch in manufacturing plants that’s set to catch the Korean brand short of stock.

Hyundai Australia will be without the i30 five-door for several months – potentially costing the brand valuable ground in the model’s hard-fought sales race with the top-selling Toyota Corolla – as it prepares for the end of production of the i30 hatch in Korea and the start of sourcing the vehicle from the Czech Republic.

“We’re actually going to sell through our i30 hatch [stock allocation] quicker than what we thought,” says Hyundai Australia COO John Kett.

“We’re going to be in the dark in terms of selling i30 for at least… three or four months, but in terms of someone to order one probably five to six months.”

The problem has arisen because production of the current PD-series i30 hatch will soon end in South Korea, which is where Australian examples are currently sourced from.

The solution is to take an updated 2024 model from the Hyundai plant in the Czech Republic – codenamed PDe – which looks set to replace the current i30’s ageing 2.0-litre engine with a better performing and more fuel-efficient 1.5-litre turbo-petrol engine.

However, strong local demand for the i30 hatch and a later than expected ramp-up of production at the Czech plant has forced Hyundai Australia to tell its dealers to stop taking orders past a certain date.

“It was supposed to be a smooth transition that we’d have the supply that would take us through to February next year on i30 PD and then sometime in April/May we would have PDe … so we get a facelift and powertrain change,” said Hyundai Australia COO John Kett.

“The orders on those cars will sort of have to stop because we can’t take an order on an i30 PDe until probably July next year.”

Available as a hatch and sedan, the Hyundai i30 accounts for about 1200 sales per month, most of them for the hatch.

The challenge for Hyundai will be trying to tempt those buyers with something else from the Korean brand’s showroom, such as the Venue and Kona compact SUVs or the updated i30 sedan that is about to hit dealerships.

“We definitely can get an increased access to Kona, certainly Venue… we’re just about to launch the [updated] i30 sedan,” says Kett.

Another challenge for Hyundai is a likely price increase for the upgraded i30.

As well as the higher cost of the vehicle itself – in part because it will get a new drivetrain – the company will also have to pay a five per cent import duty on the Czech-made car because there is no free trade agreement in place with Australia, as there is with South Korea.

“Even if the price is higher than what we’re experiencing today, those price points that were covered by entry-level i30 will be covered by Venue [and] i30 sedan,” said Kett.

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