After being the hot topic of the Indian automobile market for the past few weeks, Hyundai Motors India Ltd. has finally confirmed to discontinue the much anticipated hot hatch, Hyundai i10 from the production line-up, while the Grand i10 will continue to serve the market. Thanks to the Team BHP, that snapped the last production variant of i10 which is the base variant and coloured in black.
And finally the nine-year-old journey comes to an end, the i10 hatchback is on the sale of its last batch of units. A decade old generation of i10 is a popular hatchback of the small car segment and set a platform for the next generations, i.e., Grand i10 and i20. The reason behind pulling out the i10 from the production is poor sales of approx. 2000 units per month which are nowhere near to the other models including the Grand i10 which has sales figure of over 11,000 units per month. Also, the all new Santro is all the way to enter the Indian market, so the brand may be trying to reduce the self-competition among the cars in the segment by shutting down the old i10.
Back in its days, the Hyundai i10 has a record selling of 8,000 - 9,000 units per month and put a dent on the selling of the rivals like Maruti Suzuki Wagon R and Ritz.
Initially, the i10 was available with the more efficient and powerful 1.2-litre 4-cylinder Kappa engine, but after the arrival of Grand i10 it was offered with the smaller 1.1-litre 4-cylinder iRDE petrol engine which is good for 66 PS.
Moreover, the Chennai-based facility was the global manufacturing hub of the i10 before the arrival of its second generation model in 2013. After that, the European line was shifted to Turkey. And the plant continued to produce i10 for India and several other global markets.
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