[Yonhap News Photo]
SEOUL, Jan. 30 (Aju News) -- Hyundai Motor Co., South Korea's largest carmaker by sales, will launch the all-new Santa Fe sport utility vehicle (SUV) in the United States this summer to capture a growing demand for crossovers, the company said Tuesday.
Hyundai Motor suffered an 11.5 percent on-year decline in U.S. sales last year due to a lack of new models, particularly SUVs. Total sales in the key North American market reached 685,555 vehicles.
"We are planning to introduce the all-new Santa Fe in the U.S. market before the summer holidays begin (there). The model to be available in the U.S. will be gasoline-powered," a Hyundai Motor executive told Yonhap News Agency. "The sale of the new model will decide the company's overall sales this year."
On the domestic front, Hyundai Motor will receive preorders from February 7, with the new Santa Fe to hit showrooms here on February 21. Details on the gasoline-powered model have not been released, although the diesel variant to be sold in the home market will come with either a 2.0-liter or 2.2-liter motor, the company said without elaborating.
The midsized SUV's prices and further details will be released next month, it said.
The first fully-revamped Santa Fe to be rolled out in six years comes as the carmaker badly needs a new SUV to drive up sales in major markets like the U.S., where the demand for crossovers has been on the rise. The top-selling SUV carries advanced technologies and premium options that have been used in luxury models, the company said in a statement.
"The company focused on making the Santa Fe a 'human-centered' vehicle that allows the driver and passengers to experience some advanced safety functions," Kim Hyo-lin, director of the User Experience Planning Group at Hyundai Motor, said at a media preview event.
The technologies to be incorporated in the fourth-generation Sante Fe include advanced driver assistance systems and a host of safety features such as safe exit assist (SEA), rear occupant alert (ROA) and rear cross-traffic collision avoidance assist systems, the statement said. The SEA and ROA technologies have been developed by the Korean carmaker and are the first of their kind to be introduced in a car anywhere in the world.
The SEA makes an alarm sound when a passenger departs from the vehicle if a car is approaching from behind. The ROA alerts the driver if a passenger is in the rear seat, a feature designed to prevent parents from accidentally leaving children in a car that might become dangerously hot inside, the company said.
(Yonhap)
reporter
Lim Chang-won
cwlim34@ajunews.com
