Tuesday, February 06, 2018

What Car? Publication Names the Hyundai IONIQ as Best Hybrid at the 2018 What Car? Awards


Some Hyundai news. The Hyundai IONIQ Hybrid was recently named as the UK’s ‘Best Hybrid’, while the high-performance Hyundai  i30 N was adjudged as the ‘Best Hot Hatch for £20,000- £30,000’ at the 2018 What Car? Awards. Judged by members of the What Car? road-test and editorial team, the IONIQ Hybrid was chosen for its cost, equipment and drivability and the all-round performance capability of the i30N made it the best hot hatch at the price mentioned above. So Hyundai Sime Darby Motors, we already got the very nice to drive IONIQ, it's time to bring in this hot hatch into Malaysia...


What Car? is a UK based automotive magazine and one which is quite popular to those who wants to but a new car. They seem to think that Hyundai cars are actually worthy environmentally friendly vehicles or are decent performance cars too. Personally I think the IONIQ is one of the cars that surprised me the most last year when I test drove it then. It was really good at what it was (a hybrid eco-friendly car) and it was actually quite fun to drive too. A big surprise indeed and waaaay more fun than the one Toyota sold a while back here in Malaysia.

Whilst Toyota may have had the market for affordable hybrids with their Prius,Toyota have stopped selling it here as it needs to be locally produced to get the Energy Efficient Vehicle rebates, there is now a better alternative with the IONIQ. 

Hyundai’s all-new i30 N high-performance hatchback was acknowledged as the Best Hot Hatch for £20,000-£30,000 category. So Hyundai Malaysia...aka Hyundai Sime Darby, bring it in and try take the fight with the other locally sold hot hatches...please? 

The What Car? team had praised both the i30N and the i30N Performance’s cornering talents, playful handling, and accessible prices. Both models feature electronically controlled suspension, torque vectoring, launch control and rev-matching as standard. They even mentioned that if anyone had told them a year ago that Hyundai would soon have one of the world’s best hot hatches in its ranks, they wouldn't believe it. But the Korean brand really has gone from zero to hero. But then again, Hyundai really did invest in talent when building the i30N as the head designed was s chap from BMW's M division. A place where handling seems to flourish.


In Malaysia, we do not get the i30 or even this better N version. But we actually get the Elantra. The i30 and the Elantra actually share the same base platform and in some markets, the i30 is also called the Elantra GT with the same 1.6liter T-GDi turbocharged engine as the Elantra Sport we get here (our test drive of the Sport is here). Now if only they bring in the i30N variant here.

The Hyundai IONIQ and Elantra Sport both come with Hyundai’s industry-leading five-year unlimited mileage warranty and roadside assistance package (t&c applies). Standard equipment for the IONIQ also includes the latest active safety features, such as Forward Collision-Avoidance Assist, Lane Keeping Assist, and Intelligent Speed Limit Warning. Oh, it seems that for the base IONIQ, prices have also dropped to RM96,888 before insurance and three years free servicing. Good offer for a good car actually.

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