Ken Gratton•18 Sept 2012
NEWS
PARIS MOTOR SHOW: Hyundai/Kia's Euro models out of reach?
Sporty three-door models from Korean brands won't make it here, but a small wagon mightHyundai and Kia will unveil three-door liftbacks at the Paris Motor Show next week, but neither model will go on sale in Australia.
Hyundai's three-door version of the i30 is built in the Czech Republic, immediately posing a major logistical hurdle to overcome – to say nothing of the added expense that must be factored into the landed cost of the car here. At the local launch of the new Santa Fe last week, motoring.com.au was told by a Hyundai spokesperson that the cost of shipping from the European factory to Australia is roughly "double" the cost of shipping cars from South Korea.
So there's one reason we're unlikely to see anything built by Hyundai's Czech factory sold in Australia.
"[We are] Confirming the new three-door i30 is being produced in right and left hand drive for the European market at Hyundai’s plant in the Czech Republic," Oliver Mann, Director of Marketing for Hyundai Australia, told motoring.com.au this afternoon. "[But] There are currently no plans to bring the three-door i30 to Australia."
There are other reasons why Hyundai would opt to leave the three-door i30 where it is... in Europe.
As a sportier alternative to the five-door model already sold here, the three-door i30 could cannibalise sales of Veloster. And if the three-door were brought in as a lower-cost option to the five-door i30, it would then snaffle sales of the light-segment Accent as well as five-door i30 models – and without the same profit margins.
It's a similar argument at Kia. Hyundai's sister company will unveil its pro-cee'd three-door in Paris next week also, but that car won't be coming to Australia either. Kia faces broadly the same shipping costs from Europe as Hyundai does – with the cee'd built in Slovakia, neighbouring the Czech Republic. But the problem for Kia in Australia is chiefly one of confusing model proliferation, according to Kevin Hepworth, the importer's National Public Relations Manager.
"The pro_cee'd is a three-door, which would only eat the lunch of the Rio three-door in Australia," he explained in conversation with motoring.com.au today. And the pro_cee'd three-door might conceivably take sales from the Cerato hatch, a car which Mr Hepworth has said in the past is Kia's exclusive small-car offering in Australia. There's a new Cerato due early next year and that model range is understood to include a three-door variant, making the importation of the pro_cee'd all the less likely.
The only occasion in the past Kia considered bringing the cee'd to Australia was prior to the introduction of the Cerato hatch, when Kia had no hatchback to sell in the small-car segment. But that being the case in the past, is there room in Kia's Aussie range for the cee'd sportwagon – a body style not available in the next-generation Cerato range?
Mr Hepworth wouldn't be drawn on that point, but rumours are circulating that the cee'd wagon is a possibility for Australia, providing the importer with a wagon in the small-car segment now that Hyundai has dropped the cw model from its i30 range.
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Written byKen Gratton
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