The new car war for the domestic automobile market to take the initiative earlier this year began in earnest in February.

According to the automobile industry on February 4, bidding has begun between the companies that are trying to catch up with the new car in all the cars and the companies that want to build the model by strengthening the existing model marketing.

In January, Hyundai`s Grandeur IG sold 9601 cars in Korea and won the bestseller for 14 consecutive months. Granger IG accounted for 25% of young consumers in their 30s.

Meanwhile, Volkswagen`s new Passat GT, which overlaps with Grandeur IG, and Toyota`s new Camry. In response to the import automobile offensive, Hyundai Motor will add a sports model equipped with a 2.0 downsizing gasoline turbo engine for the first time in the first half of the year.

Volkswagen Korea, which has discontinued as `Diesel Gate`, released its 8th generation Passat GT, its flagship model. After a year and a half six months, the company resumed sales and started promotional offensive.

A representative of Volkswagen Financial Services Korea said, "We can guarantee a price of up to 50% at the time of return after maturity as an installment-type installment financing product." If you purchase the new Passat GT 2.0 TDI (KRW 43.2 million) and 50% of the monthly payment of 299,000 won (30% of the advance payment and the 36-month basis) is paid, "he stated.

In order to increase sales of the new Camry, which was released last October, Korea`s Toyota Motor Corporation has set out to catch 30 to 40 consumers in social network services (SNS) such as Facebook and Instagram.

The Hybrid car `Prius C` will be launched in the first half of the year and seven service centers will be expanded this year.

The competition for mid-sized sports utility cars (SUV) is also hot. Hyundai`s new Santa Fe, which will be born in six years, will be pre-contracted on July 7 and will start selling at the end of this month. The new Santa Fe is going to enter into a fierce battle for the domestic family car throne with Kia Motors Sorento and Renault Samsung Motors QM6, which are the number one domestic SUVs.

Equinox, imported from Korea by GM Korea, is also launched in the first half of this year. Kia Sorento sold 5906 units last month, up 13.8% from the same month of last year. Hyundai aims to sell more than 100,000 units of the new Santa Fe this year.

Minerals, on the other hand, are also getting more attention due to high oil prices. Kia`s `The New Ray` enjoyed a new car effect, with 2,645 cars sold over the previous month. Kia Motors plans to release a Ray-LPG model equipped with LPi (direct-injection LPG) engine as early as February. Kia Morning last month`s sales decreased by 18.7% to 4,487.


By Ye Jin Soo jinye@


[ copyright ⓒ The Digitaltimes ]