Hyundai Venue OUTSELLS the Maruti Brezza in July 2019

We have a new king in the sub-4 meter compact SUV space: the Hyundai Venue. The Venue has just beaten the Maruti Suzuki Vitara Brezza in terms of July 2019 sales. While the cheapest Hyundai SUV clocked its best ever sales since launch with 9,585 units sold in July 2019, the Maruti Brezza slipped to its worst ever sales number with just 5,302 units sold in the same period. The Indian car market is currently going through a severe slowdown, and Maruti has cut production drastically. While the Venue’s sales have grown by nearly 10 % month on month, the Brezza’s sales have dropped by over 30 %. The Hyundai Venue is really hurting the Maruti Brezza and the latter does need a petrol engine desperately to make a comeback. Maruti Suzuki is said to be working on a petrol-mild hybrid version of the Vitara Brezza, which will be launched with the facelifted version. The Brezza Petrol should do its bit to give the SUV good numbers going forward.

Currently, the Maruti Vitara Brezza is the only SUV in its segment (discounting the body-on-ladder Mahindra TUV300 and Nuvosport 7 seaters) to operate with a single engine option: the 1.3 liter fiat Multijet turbo diesel unit. Buyers in the compact car classes are opting for petrol engined car given the uncertainty surrounding diesel engined vehicles, and also the lowering difference between petrol and diesel.

Moreover, Maruti Suzuki has declared that it will no longer offer diesel powered cars from April 2020, and will instead go with petrol and petrol-hybrid options. This move is another factor that’s making buyers take the safer route of opting for petrol engined cars.

Coming to the Hyundai Venue, the SUV is offered in a wide range of variants, both in petrol and diesel. In fact, Hyundai offers not one but two petrol engine options with the SUV. The 1.2 liter petrol engine borrowed from the Elite i20 has allowed Hyundai to price the base variant of the Venue very attractively, at Rs. 6.5 lakhs. This price tag is a big reason for many hatchback buyers to consider the Venue, and head to Hyundai dealerships.

Once there, they usually end up buying the higher variants of the SUV. The other petrol engine offered on the Venue is the 1 liter-3 cylinder turbocharged unit with 118 Bhp-172 Nm. This engine gets 6 speed manual and 7 speed twin clutch automatic gearboxes. The diesel engine offered on the Venue is a 1.4 liter turbocharged unit with 89 Bhp-220 Nm on tap. A 6 speed manual gearbox is standard with this engine.