India is a land of hatchbacks. Such is the popularity of hatchbacks here that they contribute to more than 50% of the total car sales in India. Cars in this body type start from the humble Tata Nano and move uptill the expensive Mini Cooper S. Quite obviously, it is the entry level hatchback segment that sees the most action, with the Maruti Alto 800, the Maruti Celerio and the Maruti Swift easily being the most popular hatchbacks on sale today. While the Maruti trio continues to rule the roost in the hatchback market, future might not be as rosy for the Celerio, What with the Hyundai Eon 1.0L launch being around the corner?
While we wish to reserve our final comments on the upcoming Hyundai Eon 1.0L variant until we’ve driven it, we have done a quick comparo of the soon to be launched model with the Chevrolet Spark and the Maruti Suzuki Celerio, two of its most immediate rivals, in a bid have a hint of how well the upcoming model would fair against its rivals.
Hyundai already sells the Eon with the 0.8 liter 3 pot motor in India. Soon, the Korean car maker will be launching the car with a 1.0 liter petrol motor which will develop 68 bhp of max power.The Chevy Spark is built on a decade old platform but comes with a fairly potent 1.0 liter 4 pot petrol motor that churns out a max power of 63 bhp @ 5400 rpm and 90NM of peak torque @ 4200 rpm. Although the Celerio’s USP is the new Automated Manual Transmission, we will be comparing the manual variant here. The Celerio is powered by the same peppy 1.0 liter 3 pot motor from the Alto K10, which develops a max power of 67 bhp.
Here is the Hyundai Eon 1.0L vs Maruti Celerio vs Chevrolet Spark tech spec comparo:
Car | Spark | Eon 1.0 | Celerio |
Body Type | Hatchback | Hatchback | Hatchback |
Segment | A | A | A |
Displacement (cc) | 995 | 995 | 998 |
Fuel Type | Petrol | Petrol | Petrol |
Transmission | Manual | Manual | Manual |
No of Gears | 5 | 5 | 5 |
No of cylinders | 4 | 3 | 3 |
Performance | |||
Peak Power(BHP@RPM) | 63/5400 | 68/6200 | 67/6000 |
Peak Torque(Nm@RPM) | 90/4200 | 95/3500 | 90/3500 |
Dimensions | |||
Length (mm) | 3495 | 3495 | 3600 |
Width (mm) | 1495 | 1550 | 1600 |
Height (mm) | 1518 | 1500 | 1560 |
Ground Clearance (mm) | 170 | 170 | 165 |
Kerb Weight (kgs) | 840 | 795 | 830 |
Boot Space (L) | 170 | 215 | 235 |
Turning Radius (m) | 4.6 | 5 | 4.7 |
The Eon has been on sale from couple of years now but hasn’t really managed to set sales charts on fire. With the advent of the 1.0 liter variant though, all this could be set for a change. As revealed by the spec sheet, the Eon 1.0 betters both its rivals in most of the areas and all Hyundai Motor India Ltd now needs is to price the car really competitively and promote it well enough. What do you say? Does the upcoming Hyundai Eon 1.0L has what it takes to set its rivals really worried? Do share your views by penning them down in the comments section below.
Datsun Go is way better than all three at almost the same price, it has already killed the competition. So no point with this upgrade, it won`t make much difference in Hyundai sales.
Thanks, corrected!
Hyundai’s is 3 pot motor