Hyundai is on a roll and a key model in the Korean brand’s rejuvenation is the all-new i30 hatch. We spoke to Hyundai UK CEO Tony Whitehorn to find out the business aspirations for this new C-segment challenger.

• Do you have any idea of the fleet/retail mix for the new i30? Is it going to be mainly a corporate car, or do you see this as a fairly equal mix?

“I think this segment is more corporate anyway, although it used to be a retail-oriented segment. Now 65% of this segment is corporate, so the new i30 has to appeal to the corporate market.

“That’s why if you look at some of the things we’ve done with this new car, there’s connectivity, safety and things like the engines. They include a 1.4-litre turbo and a 1.0-litre turbo – that starts to help the CO2 proposition. They also help the BIK side of things as it’s going to be cheaper than a diesel vehicle.

“So actually I think that, what you’re going to see on this car, is that it’s going to appeal to user-chooser corporate clients, because I think the engine line-up itself is going to be much more appealing to those on a BIK proposition.

“I think i30 sales are going to be split at least 60:40 in favour of corporate. At the moment, as with any model going through the product life cycle, towards the end you do more rental – that’s exactly how it works.

“Obviously we won’t do as much rental with this car – well certainly at the beginning. So we’re going to try and get into more corporate fleets.

“I think things like connectivity, particularly for user-choosers, is very, very important.

“So they want to have their Apple and Android Carplay, their phones wirelessly charged, their music coming up on the eight-inch screen.

“A user-chooser actually works just the same as a retail customer – they’re one and the same to be honest.”

•  We appreciate it’s early days, but do you have any idea of the engines we’ll take in the UK for the new i30 and what do you think is going to be the most popular engine for the corporate market?

“We will take the 1.0-litre turbo petrol, we’ll take the 1.4-litre turbo petrol and the 1.4-litre petrol. In the diesel the only version of the 1.6 we won’t take is the 90.

“Initially people will want the diesel models, but I think over time, there will be a gravitation towards the 1.4-litre petrol. The reason I say that, is that I think that, more and more people are questioning diesel and they’re looking for alternatives.

“They won’t leave diesel immediately, but over time when they see that the petrol vehicle is going to be cheaper, with a relatively similar BIK, for a much lower CC engine they may transition to petrol.

“They’ll get the same performance in terms of torque, pretty similar performance in terms of fuel economy – so these petrol engines are actually offering a viable alternative to diesel. It will take a little time, because people are naturally conservative. But I can see the corporate market moving away from the diesel and looking at alternative methods of propulsion.”

•  With the release of hybrid and all-electric versions of the bigger Ioniq, there seems to be a real push by Hyundai for alternative fuel cars – will the same be true of the new i30?

“The strategy is to launch Ioniq and with that you’ve got electric and hybrid, we’ll bring a PHEV in next year – next spring for that. Then, yes some of those technologies will go into vehicles like the i30.

“As I said before, the general public and user-chooser fleet buyer are similar – they are looking for alternative fuel vehicles nowadays. Up until now, there hasn’t been many alternatives

“So, when you launch something like a hybrid vehicle, to put it into an Ioniq says we, Hyundai, can do alternative fuel vehicles. Exactly as Toyota did with the Prius, you can now buy a Yaris Hybrid, an Auris Hybrid and that’s essentially where we’re going to, by bringing that hybrid technology to some of our other vehicles.

“I can see what’s going to happen, buyers are going to come and say they want an i30. What trim do you want? An SE Nav. What colour? And what method of propulsion do you want – petrol?, diesel?, hybrid?, plug-in hybrid? All of those eventually – that’s how it’s going to be.

 “For us, moving forward, between now and 2020, as a corporation, we’re going to bring in 28 new models, with alternative methods of propulsion.

“So that sort of says we’re not just going to stick at the Ioniq are we – obviously not! We’re looking at how we can bring that alternative fuel technology across the range – because that’s what the customer is going to want.”

•  The current i30 has done really well for you, it has done reasonably well in corporate as well. This one is a different proposition again, are there any different ways of selling this new Hyundai to the corporate market?

“I think that what this vehicle does have is a foothold in the fleet arena, I think that whenever you produce a brand new car, be it a C-segment car, you’re going to get interest from fleets that you didn’t have previously – of course you are.

“There are more fleet vehicles that are C-segment, than any other segment, at all. So therefore, it’s a great opportunity for us to go out there and start to open doors with a new C-segment vehicle. Having the Ioniq, gives us another alternative for people.

“So what we’ll be doing, in the next year,  we’ll be taking the Ioniq and the new i30 to fleet companies. I think that’s a really strong proposition for a lot of companies, they’ll see a brand new C-segment vehicle and a brand new alternative fuel vehicle. Of course the SUV-segment is growing massively, of course it is, but it is nowhere near as big as the C-segment.”

•  We saw some outlines of future versions of the i30, is there any serious thoughts about an i30-based crossover coming at all?

“Let’s just think about what’s happening in the marketplace at the moment, Hyundai is incredibly quick at getting into market opportunities. So you saw the three vehicles up there and I think you can sort of work out what they were, but over and above that there will be the end version as well.

 “So, you’re going to have those three body styles. So we’re going to have quite a suite of vehicles, then we’ve got the SUV, which will be a completely different proposition. It won’t be an i30, it will be like the Nissan Juke.

“The B-SUV, well that segment is growing, although it’s actually not going as strongly as the medium SUV market. Understandably there’s an opportunity there, which says ultimately – we’re going to be there.”

•  Is there any timeline in place for the rollout of this car to corporate customers?

“So what will happen is, that it will obviously be on show at the Paris motorshow.  Then after that, it starts production in December – so we will then start to show fleets the car next January and February. We will be on sale in February, in time for March and that’s really important to us. With all the engines available from launch.

“Specification-wise it’s all about keeping things simple, too many manufacturers make it unbelievably complicated. Essentially we will have an entry-level version, we won’t sell that many of those. Then, we’ll have the heartland, which is similar to what we have now, so SE and an SE Nav. Then you have the Premium. SE Nav is what this model is about for the business buyer.”