When Ritwik and I first found out that a new Hyundai Elantra was coming soon,
I could see the lust for comfort and luxury in his eyes.
Ritwik: Let's ask Hyundai for an Elantra dude.
I want to drive it back home.
Rohan: Why will Hyundai give us a car though?
Ritwik: Tell them we're from Tob Gear!
So we reached Chennai, Hyundai manufacturing plant.
Told them we're from Tob Gear, doing an experiment, and got this car.
But there was one problem.
Ritwik himself.
Ritwik: No, this was my idea.
Rohan: Ritwik don't be so difficult.
Come on man. You can drive later. Give me the keys.
Ritwik: No.
Rohan: I can't be putting up with this every single time dude.
Hyundai: Good Afternoon Jeremy.
Rohan: Sir, good afternoon.
Hyundai: How are you?
Rohan: I'm good thank you.
Hyundai: How's the experiment going?
Rohan: Sir can we just have one more car?
Now towards Pune we go and we have a 1000 km to rightfully experience a sedan of this
league in it's rightful element, I would say.
On such open roads, away from the city-like distractions you would really come to appreciate
this new 2 Liter petrol engine from Hyundai.
150 horses, 192 Nm of torque.
And that's really the part of the plan.
That's really the purpose of the journey, a part of this experiment.
So what you can do with 150 horses, is this.
Speed up.
And when you are speeding up, the engine sounds really good.
I mean this is not a sports car, so it's not going to sound like one but it's not all too bad at all.
I am currently in the driving mode Sports and it's quite an experience
coz I see the needle shifting straight at red line - 6500 rpm.
Again the engine sounding good.
The old Hyundai Elantra by now would have felt like going out of control.
This doesn't.
They have hugely worked on the NVH levels, so the cabin NVH is fantastic.
So the outside sounds are not really rushing in.
And then when you want to drop anchor from these high speeds, well it's quite easy.
And when you do that, the car stops unlike any other Hyundai car before.
It maintains stability, it's planted and it feels like on it's toes under braking.
Alright then.
We have pulled over to shift our attention to different aspects of this car.
Namely- the interiors.
It's very different to the earlier Elantra, it's not beige in colour
and it's not the waterfall dash that stood out straight in your face.
Which is, I believe, nicer.
Also it's got these silver accents which make it more elegant, it's slanted towards the
driver which adds to the premium touch and also houses this 8 inch touch screen display here.
Where you also get navigation, you can zoom in or zoom out say to fix your destination
which is a lot easier, I felt than punching in the alphabets which you also can in this system.
Clicking on the all menus button here... now.
There you go, clicking on the home button.
So some amount of lag, nothing that will really get in your way of enjoying this display screen.
But if you are used to your expensive smartphone, that is something that you will still mind.
Apart from that, you get 2 zone climate control so your co-passenger can have different temperature settings.
So I'm in the back seat of the all new Hyundai Elantra.
And I'm quite liking it out here.
I've got enough knee room, I've got enough headroom.
The space out here might feel a little less to you because of the dark interiors,
black interiors or because of the Coupe sloping roof-line at the back, but that's really not the case.
Not the best in class in terms of space, but that's really no reason to complain.
However, what is the reason to complain, is this.
The thigh support here at the rear seat is not really good.
You happen to have a third person sitting here in the middle, he or she gets a headrest,
not bad.
And then of course there is the armrest with cupholdrs.
There's a nice little handy feature here.
You can open up this space which has direct access to the boot.
Good.
Now, it's time to step the game up.
And to do that I would have to talk of the Fluidic 2.0 design.
The new Hyundai Elantra doesn't go overboard and is yet elegant.
Especially when the sun is setting in it's beautiful lights.
Dark had fallen and as we pulled over for the night, I remember going to bed with one clear thought.
This is a good looking car.
Ritwik: I want to drive the Petrol.
Rohan: Like you want to carry 5 bags for two days?
Ritwik: Yes.
Rohan: Coz this is your idea?
Ritwik: Yes.
Alright then, I'm having to drive the diesel Elantra because of adamant Ritwik.
Which is not all too bad really, coz the diesel car get all the goodness of the petrol car.
That is to say, you get the electric sunroof here, you also get this a 10 way adjustable electric
drivers seat, you have front two seats which are ventilated, the steering is adjustable for rake and reach.
You also get all the driving modes that you get in the petrol.
Unlike the all new aluminium petrol engine this diesel car does not get any new diesel engine.
It's the 1.6 Liter diesel engine as seen in the outgoing Elantra 126 horses 260 Nm of torque.
But if you think that that's not good enough, here's a little perspective- the highest selling
sedan in this segment, which is the D-segment, is the Toyota Corolla Altis and that just gets 88 horses.
Now both the engines- the petrol and the diesel are mated to 6- speed Automatic gearboxes,
there is also the manual gearbox but we are not going to talk of that because we are not driving that.
And the torque converter gearbox in the Petrol was really good.
Really fantastic, no complaints there.
The driveability in the diesel car feels a little better here because the low end torque
that is available and for the fact that the torque converter amplifies the feeding of torque.
Well I'm just realising by the overcast out here is that the new Elantra does not get automatic vipers
which is quite a bummer for a car which is supposed to be very premium.
I did speak of braking yesterday and it was all good.
Now, yes the brakes do a good job of getting the car stopped in time but they do feel spongy.
Rohan: Hello, yeah Ritwik?
Ritwik: Rohan, we need to stop. My car needs fuel.
Petrol Elantra was doing 500 kms to the tank of 50 liters while my diesel was doing 700 kms to a tank.
Not bad for the fact that our driving had been quite erratic.
That brings us to the suspension, steering and chassis bits.
Steering has been made or has been put into this, with number one priority- easy driving experience for the user.
And that it seems to do quite well.
Yes it lacks feel, it lacks feedback, I personally didn't find it to be tiresome over the journey that I have had.
Now I suspect, and here I'm not so sure and yet I'm sure that the chassis is the same.
Although hugely worked upon.
Because the wheelbase is the same even though the car has gone longer or wider.
Since the chassis has been so worked upon, this car handles a whole lot better than the old Hyundai Elantra.
But that still doesn't mean that you behave like a racer-boy going hot into a corner.
That's not really what this car is meant for.
As we got closer to our destination, we were to be greeted by bad roads, mismanaged traffic
and huge speed-breakers.
And even huge mountainous speed-breakers like this, they don't really matter.
Because the car's got enough 167 mm of ground clearance and over the entire journey now,
I haven't managed to scrape the underbelly of the car even once.
In such city traffic-like situations, we can actually switch our attention onto something else.
On to things like the music system.
Well, the music system in this car is not bad.
It's future strong, this system.
That is to say, that it comes already equipped with digital radio, which is something that
is going to become a mandate in the year 2017.
The sound quality though, it didn't really blow me away.
My favorite playlist is what I played and my favorite song Kabali, it didn't really sound
like it was hitting me out for a home-run.
But that's about it.
The Elantra here, comes with 6 Airbags, there is ABS, EBD, ESP and then it's always good
to see a traction control button for those wet, rainy days.
It also comes with crash boxes at the front and at the back, which helps in keeping the repair costs low.
So what I have particularly liked about this Elantra is the fact that the handling is,
yes hugely improved, it's become a lot more comfortable now.
And that they are increasingly taking safety very seriously.
Top end diesel that I'm driving right now costs about 19.19 Lakhs, the Petrol one which
Ritwik has gotten lost with at the fuel station, that costs about 18 Lakhs.
Now the Octavia, though a fair competition to this car, is a lot more expensive, at least 4 Lakhs expensive.
Let's talk of the segment leader Toyota Altis.
Now the petrol Altis, well that near about the same price as the petrol Elantra but then
it's an old car and misses out on a lot of features.
So at the end of it all, let me ask a question fair and straight.
Will I buy this car?
Well, if I am to, I would go in for the petrol version.
It is a lot of car that Hyundai is offering.
But if I wanted it even cheaper, then I would go in for the SX Automatic Petrol variant,
which costs just 15.8 Lakhs, doesn't come with ventilated air seats, which I didn't
use in the journey, doesn't come with the electric seat adjustment, which I would've
used only once in a journey like this and it doesn't come with 6 airbags but does get 2 airbags.
So once again, will I buy it?
Well, Riwik again.
Hey, I've reached.
No Ritwik, you can't take the car back home!