Hyundai’s slogan for the new i30 is ‘the people’s car’.
Cheeky, yes, but also a fine piece of opportunism from the ambitious Korean brand.
As VW’s name has quite rightly been dragged through the mud this past year, Hyundai has sensed an opportunity to promote itself as the kind of clean, wholesome, classless brand, and to borrow a couple of slogans VW may choose to avoid using for a while in the process.
Hyundai has revealed the all-new i30 - read more here
Although Jochen Sengpiehl, Hyundai’s European marketing boss, told me there was no intention of cashing in on VW’s dieselgate misery, the inference is clearly there.
“Maybe another competitor is not the people’s car anymore, especially in Europe…” he said. “Are people really prepared to spend 10% more for something? On our way to grow, we need to get to the heart of Europe, and offer a car for everyone. In English, that’s the people’s car.”
He admitted it was a slogan to get the media talking (and here I am doing just that…), “not a slogan for end consumers”. He said Hyundai wanted to “spice up and show our aspirations”.
The i30 will bring its own family of models - here's the full story
So, can the i30 fill the gap of the Golf as that classless car able to be driven by all? “What the Volkswagen Golf has achieved, we won’t be able to, as it’s an icon. The Golf is a status-less car, driven by students and rich people. It’s so strong in Europe.
“We don’t want to fight it, but get some of the nuggets from it, be the alternative for people saying it’s not accessible anymore. People can want it, and not pay that much for it. With a family of i30s coming and lots of powertrains, we can attract a big audience.”
Would you really bet against them?
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Interesting
Toyota went through this likewise: they vowed to establish themselves in Europe, so many factories, a design studio (really?) and R&D (really?) but so far have failed to consistently sell 1 million cars in 2015, when in their heyday they managed to sell well more than that. Now they have a Senior Avensis, an unconpetitive Auris now with a promising station body that arrived at the time elsewere everybody were also proposing theirs (Civic, León, i30, C'eed) and a handfull of newlly badged PSA cars & vans, yet no ones sees 1 million cars.
True, Hyundai will manage to sell as much as they will be able churn out, with that 10% less but, and this is were all non-european car makers fail to grasp (or aknowledge on their PR garbage), only because of circumstance. Have the people tried and the competition re-align to their core values (see Mercedes-Benz now delivering to their motto of The Best or Nothing), they will retract and get defeated because they do not provide 1 single point of diferentiation for the better other than value for money.
Volkswagen is no longer the People's Car because the true People's car was an idealization of Hitler that coincidently Professor Ferdinand Porsche was able to engineer & bring to fruition but only before II WW came on. When production resumed after the war, the car was virtually 100% different, because what Professor Ferdinand Porsche engineered was a brilliant on-the-budget 1000 Reich Mark car, that could seat 4 people and their bagage and cruise all day long at 100Km/h without seizing the engine or overheating, something that at the time, no one was able to provide at that price-point.
On these days, people that spend their pounds in mobile phones and other first-world needs, expect Rolls-Royce fit & finish and Bugatti performance at Dacia prices from Volkswagen but what they fail to realize is that Hyundai is not delivering 1 single differentiation from the car maker crowd, 1 that will set them apart. Then so, virtually anyone can grab the seat they occupy.
To some extent, all those Tesla fans that claim the brand is making strides, no longer reachable by others, fail also to realize that as soon Porsche, Daimler, Audi and many others start their onslaught, Tesla will stay with a revised roadster, an also run Model S, an more-that-problematic & weird-door-featured Model X, leaving just an Model 3, were it needs to deliver a price competitive vehicle, from which most of the founding for next vehicles engineering & other ventures will come.
I tend to get real, been doing great so far.
Up and coming
Really don't think the Golf