Hyundai releases $82,000 Genesis

Would you pay $82,000 for a Hyundai?

That's the price the company's local arm has put on the top variant of its all-new flagship Genesis sedan.

Although the starting price on the first Genesis sedan range to be released in Australia will be $60,000, the $82K sticker on the top-of-the-range Genesis Ultimate Pack is what will grab the headlines.

Hyundai Australia will also offer a mid-grade Genesis Sensory Pack model priced at $71,000.

The two top variants of the Genesis range will, the company says account 20 and 10 per cent of sales respectively.

Even the $60K kick-off makes the large rear-wheel drive luxury sedan the most expensive model ever sold by the Korean brand in Australia. Currently, its i40 Premium diesel wagon is currently the priciest Hyundai passenger car at $47,590 and the $51,990 Santa Fe Highlander is its dearest SUV.

However, Hyundai says the combination of BMW 7 Series technology, 5 Series space and 3 Series pricing will make the Genesis attractive to Australians in the market for anything from a Toyota Aurion to a Mercedes-Benz E-Class.

And to sweeten the deal, it is offering five years or 75,000km of free servicing and a guaranteed buy-back plan. And this on top of Hyundai's usual five-year/unlimited-km warranty, lifetime capped-pricing servicing and three-year navigation map update programs.

Almost all of Hyundai's 165 Australian dealers will have a Genesis demonstrator available to test drive, and some will also offer back-to-back test drives of key (leased) competitor models. Hyundai says it has a database of more than 4000 potential customers for the Genesis and the capacity for 1400 test drives, of which about 850 have been booked.

It said the Genesis is the subject of a "substantial investment" in marketing, including a new website, television commercials since Sunday (November 2) and a deal with Qantas to display the model at major airports.

But the ambitious car-maker, which currently lies just over 100 registrations behind third-placed Mazda in Australia's new-vehicle sales race this year (and was second in the October VFACTs ranking), admits it will be tough to sway buyers away from the established luxury brands.

Hyundai Motor Company Australia COO John Elsworth was reluctant to reveal a specific sales target for the Genesis, but said he expected to sell "anywhere up to 1000" annually and admitted it "won't be one of our most profitable car lines".

That would make the Genesis less popular than Australia's top-selling large luxury car, the $80,000-plus Mercedes-Benz E-Class, which attracted 1450 buyers last year.

Hyundai's last large car, the previous-generation Grandeur, found just 1033 homes here between 2006 and 2011, despite price tags of between $40,000 and $42,000.

"It's [large cars] is definitely not a segment that's growing," Elsworth stated (The Australia mainstream large-car segment slumped a further 17 per cent in 2013).

"No-one here [at Hyundai] thinks it'll be an easy task to conquest traditional luxury car buyers, so we've had to think very hard about marketing and pricing."

To that end, HMCA marketing director Oliver Mann said the Genesis would not target "traditionalists" or "badge devotees", but rather "astute thinkers".

"Badge devotees see a luxury badge as a prerequisite for their purchase," Mann said.

"Astute thinkers are successful, comfortable and prudent people who have little need to project their status. For them product content and capability are of more interest and appeal than traditionalists, and they derive satisfaction from making discerning choices in life and don't look to others for validation," Mann opined.

"Astute thinkers are confident individuals who aren’t interested in projected status or conspicuous displays or wealth. Our launch campaign targets those people and challenges conventional values in the luxury car category."

Mann would not name the specific conquest models currently owned by this customer group, but admitted the Genesis will also appeal to hire car businesses.

He said Hyundai will not specifically target Australia's Korean community, and that there was never any intention to replace the car's rear Hyundai badge with the Genesis logo, as has been the case in Korea and other markets.

"Australian large car buyers are either buying or considering buying anything from a Toyota Aurion to an E 400," he said.

"The specifications and pricing of Genesis makes it accessible to anyone considering Australian, Japanese or German brands at this price point.

"Drivers of these vehicles who attended our product clinics where Genesis was displayed with its Hyundai badge in place gave us tremendous confidence. Our faith in the product concept was rewarded with a universally positive response.

"The badge didn't diminish their enthusiasm. It added an intriguing new dimension to it.

"We're proud to put the Hyundai badge on the vehicle. This car's designed to show how far Hyundai has come. It wouldn't achieve the strategic goal we have for it without the Hyundai badge," Mann stated.

In his first appearance at an Australian media launch, incoming HMCA chief executive Charlie Kim, who successfully launched the original Genesis in Korea and the US, said the local introduction of the company all-new premium sedan was designed to take Hyundai to the next level Down Under.

"Australia is known as the world's most competitive market and we're in a strong fourth place... The next challenge for Hyundai is to improve the strength of the brand. Genesis will change the way people think about Hyundai in Australia," Kim stated.

"We know that selling a luxury car against the established competition won't be easy. Challenging convention and offering a new kind of luxury experience is what it will take to get consumers into the new kid on the block."

Mann said Hyundai Australia made a pivotal decision in 2010 to request the development of a right-hand drive version of the second-generation Genesis rather than the new Grandeur, a front-drive large sedan that will not be sold here.

"While Genesis is certainly a logical progression for Hyundai from a product and business perspective, it also stretches the envelope for the Hyundai brand globally and perhaps nowhere more than in Australia, where Hyundai has become synonymous for value," he said.

"The reason was not just because Australians prefer rear-wheel drive for their large cars. We knew that the [Genesis] would also be a substantially larger and more expensive car than the Grandeur. It would really show our technical expertise as well as stretch the Hyundai brand and challenge our abilities as an organisation.

"It was a choice between evolutionary or revolutionary," Mann told motoring.com.au.

"We felt Genesis offered us the opportunity to accelerate Hyundai's development in Australia by acting as a brand halo and forcing us to raise our game and our customer presentation standards and processes."

Mann said the Genesis is the most researched model ever produced by Hyundai and the subject of the most intensive Australian chassis development program ever undertaken by the company.

Service and sales staff from every dealer will be trained at Hyundai's Sydney HQ. Genesis will also be supported by the car-maker's new 'global premium showroom concept', which is already being rolled out in Australia – the model's largest RHD market (ahead of the UK).

Hyundai Australia says it is interested in adding a V8 variant to the local V6-only Genesis line-up, but at this stage no RHD version has been confirmed.

motoring.com.au understands a 5.0-litre Genesis for Australia may be forthcoming as part of a midlife facelift. In contrast, Hyundai says it has no current plans to produce a replacement for the LHD-only Genesis Coupe or a smaller Genesis sedan.

However, the Genesis will be joined within months by another all-new Hyundai sedan --the latest Sonata mid-sizer, a belated replacement for the discontinued i45. That car is scheduled for February 2015 release.

As we've reported, 2.0-litre turbo-petrol and 2.4-litre petrol version of the next Sonata will likely lead to the existing i40 mid-size sedan and wagon becoming a diesel-only model here.