Hyundai India plans to price the Santa Fe Crossover at INR 20-22 Lakhs

2007 Hyundai Santa Fe Crossover

Before anyone else could, we first broke news about the Hyundai Santa Fe heading to Indian shores. Hyundai Indian confirmed this and now we have pricing details too. Hyundai India plans to price the Santa Fe Crossover at about INR 20-22 Lakhs. What Hyundai India didn’t tell us is whether these prices will be the ex-showroom or on road prices. Going by Hyundai India’s colorful history with overpricing, lets assume that these prices are factory prices. Once these factory prices get a sniff of the showroom floor, you can expect to shell out close to 10% extra. If that indeed does happen, the Hyundai Santa Fe will sell anywhere between INR 22 to 24 Lakhs.

Alright, so what really is the issue? The Hyundai Santa Fe is a great crossover that even has the American public paying less for insuring their Santa Fes due to it’s excellent safety record, isn’t it? Hell yeah, but considering the larger picture, of if we may call it, the Indian picture, Hyundai India so far has simply not been able to crack the plus INR 10 Lakh segment. One huge reason for this is that the Hyundai badge simply doesn’t seem to appeal as much as say the Europeans or the Japanese. Could be true. The second big reason is that Hyundai India has been pricing it’s products close to or higher than the competition.

In Hyundai’s defense, it’s products have been comparable to the Japanese as well as the European competition, but why then, does the Indian car buyer who has more than INR 10 Lakhs to shop for, not look at the Hyundai products? Back to square one, lack of badge value and the belief, albeit a false one, of Korean products being essentially ones that are cheap and utility oriented. So, one step Hyundai India can take is by undercutting the competition first by some terrific value pricing as value pricing always works in India and then going on to unleash a high decibel, no holds barred campaign to win the hearts and more essentially, the pockets of luxury car buyers.

Unfortunately with the Hyundai Santa Fe Crossover, both of these don’t seem to be happening. To add insult to injury, the Santa Fe seems to be primed take on the mighty Toyota Fortuner, and no guesses to which way the scales will tilt if the Santa Fe gets priced bang in Fortuner territory. We’d love to be proven wrong Hyundai. Do we smell another Tucson here? Enough said.

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