Hyundai pulls plug on Santa Fe in India

Hyundai has pulled the plug on its Santa Fe SUV by discontinuing the sales of the seven-seater. The Korean manufacturer’s India website no longer shows the Santa Fe in its product range. Dealers with no stocks available are no longer accepting bookings of the seven-seater SUV either.

The Santa Fe has done decidedly poor on the sales chart, with only 14 sold in July 2017 and just one unit sold in August 2017. From April to July 2017, only 45 units of the Santa Fe were sold while in the span of six months, Hyundai has only managed to move 67 units of its large SUV. To put it into perspective, Toyota sold 2,116 units of the Fortuner while Ford managed to sell 1,163 Endeavours in August 2017.

The Santa Fe that was on sale in India was the third-generation model launched at the 2014 Auto Expo. With the top-spec 4WD AT variant costing Rs 38.29 lakh (on-road, Delhi), it was considered more expensive than its rivals, which hindered sales.

Under the hood, the large SUV got a 2.2-litre turbo-diesel engine that produced 197hp at 3,800 rpm and 421Nm of peak torque between 1,800rpm and 2,500rpm. The 2WD trim has a six-speed manual as standard while a six-speed automatic gearbox was optional. The 4WD model was only available with a six-speed automatic transmission.

The Santa Fe rivalled the Toyota Fortuner, Ford Endeavour and Volkswagen Tiguan when it was available in the market. There is no word on a replacement for the model yet.