Hyundai Veloster N unlikely for Australia

Hyundai Australia says that it’s currently unlikely we will see the recently-unveiled Veloster N performance car in our market.

The all-new Veloster and Veloster N, unveiled at the Detroit motor show today, are both being built in South Korea, which is unlike the soon-to-arrive i30 N, which the company sources from Europe.

Whilst the regular 2018 Veloster range is set to debut in the third quarter of this year, the N model remains unconfirmed.

Speaking to CarAdvice in Detroit this week, Hyundai Australia’s general manager of public communications, Bill Thomas, cast doubt on the vehicle’s Australian potential but also didn’t rule it out.

“We are looking at it, [but it’s] not confirmed. It’s more unlikely than likely,” Thomas said.

“Given that currently it’s only going to be produced in left-hand drive, so the car as we understand is US and Korean market only, and you look at in terms of range for N cars at the moment and we have the [i30] hatch and we are going to start with that and we have confirmed the [i30] fastback five door, which is a lower sleeker design so we are going to have that differentiation within the N range, but we are interested in what the opinion is on this car and whether or not people think it’s an extra that we can do in Australia for a different type of buyer.”

The Hyundai Veloster N carries over the same powertrain as the i30 N, which means it will start off life with a 2.0-litre turbocharged engine. Unlike the i30 N, which comes in two flavours (yet to be confirmed as to which one or both we will see for our market), we believe the Veloster will only be offered with the high-spec 202kW/353Nm setup (overboost to 378Nm), matching the i30 N Performance Pack.

In the i30 N Performance, the 0-100km/h is claimed at 6.1 seconds, we suspect the Veloster N should be able to better that, given it weighs a little less.

The issue with right-hand drive production isn’t as big an investment as other cars that have no fundamental basis for right-hand drive engineering, considering the base Veloster is already available for our market,

“We haven’t confirmed it yet, [it’s] back and forward with our parent company so still up in the air, but certainly there are people within Australian organisation that want the car but it’s not that easy and it’s up to our parent company,” Thomas said.

“There will be a certain level of investment required to convert the car to RHD, even though we are taking the Veloster turbo in right-hand drive, it’s a different engineering exercise and different problem to create a right-hand drive Veloster N.”

Ultimately it will come down to whether Australia and other right-hand drive markets can present a strong enough business case for the car, with Thomas admitting that there is also the issue of if it would increase sales of N overall, or simply cannibalise i30 N.

“[It] needs a business case to be put forward, [it] needs to be justified for the Australian market whether that extra choice is going to be incremental volume or rob sales from the i30 hatch, so it’s a business challenge that we need to look at.”

That challenge and its subsequent decision should be made towards the end of 2018, which also coincides with the launch of the i30 N fastback.

Would you like to see the Hyundai Veloster N in Australia? Would you buy it over the i30 N?

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