How Hyundai Managed To Keep Creta Facelift Prices Aggressive

Hyundai has just launched the Creta facelift in India, and prices start at ₹11 lakh and go all the way up to ₹20 lakh (both, ex-showroom, India). Compared to the pre-facelift model, the prices haven’t gone up by much but Hyundai has added a lot of features and even strengthened the chassis at major places to improve safety. 

The safety enhancements on the Creta include what Hyundai claims as “liberal amounts” of advanced and high-strength steel in the chassis of the Creta. It also says the Creta’s body structure has also been reinforced in key areas like crash members, floor, side sills and crash pad to increase structural rigidity and energy absorption. There have also been weight gains but Hyundai hasn’t revealed how much the heft has gone up. Hyundai has also added features like 19 ADAS, a 360-degree, a new 10.25-inch digital instruments cluster, dual-zone climate control and more. 

However, Hyundai seems to have omitted a few features in the Creta facelift, in what seems to be a way to keep prices aggressive. The updated model misses out on features like follow-me-home headlamps, lane change indicator adjustment, front fog lamps, and dual horns. Furthermore, the Creta facelift also gets a single reverse light mounted in the centre of the bumper, as opposed to two in each corner. 

While the feature deletions may not be extensive and the subsequent cost savings may not be intense, it does justify the slight price increase given the structural enhancements and feature additions. Hyundai may have saved a few bucks by deleting these features and probably has fewer vendors to pay, but that translates into a price increase of around ₹80,000 on the top-spec variants. 

This further translated to Hyundai keeping the prices of the Creta facelift aggressive. At the moment, the starting prices of only four compact SUVs are lower than the Creta – the MG Astor (₹9.98 lakh - 17.90 lakh), Citroen C3 Aircross (₹9.99 lakh - 12.97 lakh), Maruti Suzuki Grand Vitara (₹10.70 lakh - 19.83 lakh) and Kia Seltos (₹10.90 lakh - 20.30 lakh). At the higher end of the price spectrum, the Creta facelift is more affordable than the Skoda Kushaq (₹11.89 lakh - 20.49 lakh), Toyota Urban Cruiser Hyryder (₹11.14 lakh - 20.19 lakh) and the Kia Seltos.