Hyundai Motor India Ltd confirmed that they would bring their premium SUV Santa Fe to India in 2010. The information was provided by a top official to Economic Times. The official also confirmed that the SUV would be imported as a CBU. Well, here we go again. We expected Hyundai to learn from cars like its Tucson and others like the X-trail and Teana that importing a car as a CBU more than doubles the price and puts it out of contention. When Hyundai find a market for the Santa Fe, it was time they attacked it with their might (read CKD).

“We will bring the Santa Fe SUV to India this year. It will be completely built unit. But after two-three years we may consider it for manufacturing as (Completely Knocked Down) unit”, company’s Managing Director Hang-Woo Park told reporters.

HMIL Marketing and Sales Vice president Arvind Saxena said the existing SUV, Tucson, would not compete with Santa Fe as both are built on different platforms. “There are no plans to give a facelift to Tucson.It will not compete with Santa Fe”. Hyundai maintain the price of the Santa Fe as a secret but one click on their group website and you can very well understand that it will start from Rs 22 lakhs, which we believe is quite a lot. The Fortuner and Endeavour are clocking 1000+ and 400+ units per month respectively and it is down to the good vehicles they are plus their price. Both the above are CKDs and that helps Toyota and Ford price their vehicles competitively. Moreover, the BMW X1 is just around the corner and Hyundai would stand no chance against the might of the X1 which will be a CKD as well. Oh and did we mention that Nissan will also bring the Teana and X-trail as CKD very soon?

So, if Hyundai are to have any chance of succeeding in the market, they better pull up their socks and go CKD from day 1 or, the history might just repeat itself. (remember the Tucson)

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