New Hyundai Kona to outsell i30

The new Hyundai Kona is expected to supplant the Hyundai i30 small car as the Korean brand’s biggest selling model in Australia, as the popularity of SUVs continues at the expense of traditional passenger cars.

But there’s another factor that could come into play and that’s where Hyundai Australia might eventually source the i30 from.

Currently, local supply of i30 hatch and sedan – barring i30 N hot hatch – comes from Ulsan in Korea. But Hyundai Australia is the only substantive right-hand drive customer for the car from that source.

Diminishing sales and other factors could eventually mean the i30 is no longer available in right-hand drive from Korea.

If an alternate production source cannot be secured (such as the Czech Republic, where right-hand drive i30 production for Europe takes place), the i30 would be a big loss to Hyundai Australia, even if sales have dropped off significantly in recent years.

It has been the brand’s top-seller Down Under every year since 2009 and even in its worst year in 2020 the i30 still found 20,734 Australian homes.

In its best year, 37,772 were sold. That was in 2016 when Hyundai was pushing hard to hit a 100,000 overall sales target and doing huge fleet deals on the i30 as a result.

Hyundai executives weren’t willing to talk about the sourcing issue with carsales, but at last week’s launch of the second-generation Kona they were clear it had every chance of becoming “the default small-car choice”, replacing the i30.

“We say this car will become the default small car for Hyundai customers because this is simply where the market is heading,” said Hyundai Australia product planning manager Chris Saltapidas.

“If we look at buyer preferences between small SUVs and small passenger cars, it’s obvious buyers are looking for small SUVs.

“Having said that, for the foreseeable future the i30 nameplate will continue to feature in our line-up.”

To the end of May in 2023, the small passenger car segment was worth 8.1 per cent of the market, while small SUVs claimed a 13.1 per cent share.

There had been reports out of Europe in 2022 that the i30 would not make it into a new generation, but they have since been rebuffed.

The current (third-generation) i30 hatch was launched in Australia in 2017 and was facelifted in late 2020. The i30 sedan, known as Elantra in other markets, was launched in 2021.

The i30 sedan line-up will be updated later this year, when a hybrid version will be added.

Hyundai first launched the i30 in Australia in 2007. In 2022, it sold 21,166 i30s compared to 11,538 Konas. The Tucson split them with 17,870 sales.

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