Hyundai’s new Elantra is the latest C-Segment car to receive a 40 MPG highway EPA rating (29 MPG in the city) as it prepares to take on Ford’s 40 MPG 2012 Focus and the 42 MPG Chevy Cruze Eco. The Accent’s only engine is a 1.8 liter engine is expected to make 148 HP and 131 lb-ft of torque, meaning you won’t have to upgrade to a special engine and aero package (as in the Cruze) or a dual-clutch transmission (as apparently is the case with the 2012 Focus). It will be down on power compared to the 160 HP/146 lb-ft Focus and more power but less torque than the 138 HP/148 lb-ft Cruze Eco, but should undercut both on price. And by bringing the model-wide efficiency up rather than tweaking special models for high efficiency, Hyundai’s John Krafcik says that his firm will have no problem hitting a 50 MPG average by 2025 (though a CAFE calculation that gives the 40/29 MPG ELantra a 44 MPG average doesn’t hurt). Meanwhile, when was the last time you heard anyone even mention the Civic or Corolla? The times, they are a-changing…
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We are still waiting for the officially official MPG numbers on the Focus. Ford now has a couple of targets to beat. Civic, Corolla, what are those?
…….Civic, Corolla, what are those?
The last time I checked the dowdy, unimaginative vehicle known as the Toyota Corolla had the highest sales numbers within its market segment in North America.
The Corolla sells purely out of the slow and steady habits of its buyers, and from the Toyota dealers’ aggressive marketing, not by any outstanding virtues of the design. Same reason Ford seems to keep selling the current Focus, despite its small size and junky interior.
Word. I own an 8th Gen civic, and I’m here to tell you that normal driving (a good mix of highway + city) renders a cool 30mpg normally. That’s a far freaking cry from the 30/41 that was on the sticker
Read and weep or cry….I just purchased a 2011 Elantra and have less than a 1,000 miles on it. My recent trip from Las Vegas to Mesquite gave me a heart breaking 30.7 mpg…..the return trip was 32 mpg. My I never exceeded 75 mph during this trip….Upon returning to Las Vegas I went directly to Planet Hyundai concerning this low figures. This is almost 10 mpg less the what Hyundai states and the service manager said he could not help me much with the low MPG!!!! Said he would have it checked out but couldn’t but would check with tech’s at Hyundai…does anyone with a new Hyundai get better than 32mpg? I would like to hear from them…
I just bought a 2011 elantra and have about 700 miles on it and seem to be averaging about 28.5 mpg and I am 95% highway at 65mph. The dealer told me that it should get better at 800 miles (break in). So far I am not impressed an wish that I had kept my 2008 civic that got about 36mpg on the highway. Why is this car rated at 40mpg?
Old and SLow – that just goes to prove how stupid (and I use that word on purpose) some American car buyers are.
The Corolla has no unique selling point. It is not the most reliable, the most fun, the best design (inside or out), the most economical or the cheapest.
At least the new Focus, the Cruze, the Elantra and the Mazda 3 have major points in their favor.
Also very telling thaa the Cruze, Focus, 3 and Elantra all sell across the world including that most punishing and discerning of compact markets Europe. The Corolla is a US only product – it would flop big time in Europe.
Oh I definitely agree and wonder if they’ll keep producing the US version of the Corolla using the current architecture through 2013.
http://www.canadiandriver.com says:
“Built in Cambridge, Ontario since 1988, the Toyota Corolla has been one of the most popular compact cars in Canada, since, well…it seems like forever. Did you know that Corollas first went on sale here in 1970? “
The 2006 Honda Civic (1.8L) got 30/40 MPG before the 2007 emissions laws went into effect.
It is impressive that these engines are now more efficient.
The Ford 2.0L engine in the new Focus has an excellent Denso DI system plus a 12:1 compression ratio and a proper automatic manual transmission (PowerShift) like the old Hondamatic. The new Ford Focus will be the one to buy in this segment…Wait until January.
PLUS the Focus will have the ecoboost and as such should be serius fun.
supposedly the newCivic will be out by2013. It was delayed by the Great Recession. The cOROLLA? wHO knows what Toyota is up to nowadays?
The Corolla & Civic lack the HP and Torque of the Focus, Cruze and Elantra while weighing just as much (or more) so they turn more RPMs and hold their gears longer. This is really complicated for some but it’s the reason my ’10 V8 F-150 Supercab gets the same MPG as my Brother’s (500lbs lighter) 4.0 V6 ’10 Explorer. So his Explorer would actually get better fuel mileage with a 4.6 V8 than with the 4.0 V6 because of its weight vs. available torque. In the end it’s all about RPMs.
“The Corolla & Civic lack the HP and Torque of the Focus, Cruze and Elantra while weighing just as much (or more) …”
Doubtful, I think only GM has released the weight of Cruze, and it ‘s a hog compared with Corolla/Civic, the other two, namely: Focus and Elantra, details are still up in the air.
BTW, the V6 in ’10 Explorer is seriously outdated and underpowered for the portly Explorer, => it has to rev to compensate its shortcoming. The V6 in ’10 Explorer is purely Ford’s game to get around CAFE.
The Cruze ECO weighs just over 3000lbs and while that is heavy, 42 MPG is impressive considering the 2011 Civic sedan weighs 2630lbs and gets only 34 MPG. Turbocharging sounds wasteful but it also means less RPMs to motivate. The 2010 Focus weighed 2623lbs vs. the 2011 Corolla that weighs 2723. Both with manual trans.
I agree the 4.0 V6 was outdated but so was the 4.6 V8.
I saw this car in person yesterday, and it looked MUCH better than I expected it to, and better than the Sonata. A lightly camou’d Accent also looked better than I expected, but not as good as the new Elantra.
Pricing (to be released on the 18th) is VERY aggressive. This car will be make life tough for the competition. It will be at least as big in the compact segment as the Sonata has become in the midsize segment.
Hyundai might have messed up by producing the Sonata and new Elantra in the same plant, which can only produce 400k cars without going to overtime. They’re going to have to go to overtime.
I would be surprised if Montgomery is the sole source of the new Elantra. I am sure Hyundai will pull some production from Korea if needed.
I hope you are right Michael since I have been waiting for Corolla volumes to drop for a long time since there has been for years no reason to pick the Corolla over many other compacts.
Assume that the Cruze at least maintains Cobalt volume, the new Focus maintains old Focus volumes and the Mazda 3 and VW Golf having loyal followings then the only place for increased Elantra sales to come from are Nissan, Honda and Toyota.
It would be huge physiological blow for Toyota if the Corolla had a major drop in sales never mind the loss in profit and revenue. Why is it that American built Elantra’s can be much cheaper than American built Corolla when Toyota has greater economies of scale and the fabled just in time manufacturing.
will they eventually offer the turbo?????
Hyundai is really doing the right thing by improving all cars across its fleet (regardless of model or option level). In the end it helps bring up their CAFE rating from its bread and butter sales and doesn’t have to rely on limited sales of hybrids to masks its fleets overall uncompetitive fuel efficiency. Hyundai seems to be getting mileage that is as good or better than others’ hybrids.
The new Hyundai Elantra, Veracruz, Tucson, and Sonata are excellent.
Very excellent.
And the prices on these cars are excellent. Very excellent.
And the new vehicles were developed quite quickly.
There’s an old engineering axiom: When you’re asking for a product to be delivered, you can pick two out of three: fast, cheap, good.
The Truth About Cars should do a story about how Hyundai managed to bust this axiom by developing these cars so fast, so cheap, and so good.
I’m sure that it would be an interesting story and TTAC readers would love to know how they do it.
I admit to being a little subjective here, but I’m not confident they busted the axiom. Firstly,’Good’ -they still ‘copy’ their designs off other cars, saving a lot in design costs, and saving some development, partly because they know it will work, and partly because they know people will think they look good. And tbh we are talking relatively decent cars here, not the winners in neither comfort or performance in any of the classes they sell cars
Secondly,’Cheap’ -are you really sure they make money on each car sold, or are they selling them cheap (they aren’t very cheap anymore in Europe as far as I know) to still be competitive?
And ‘fast’ how different are these cars really compared to their last generation. Did they have to do lots of development to create them?
As far as I can tell they have tried their best to copy the success of other big selling brands like Toyota and VW, and have provided decent unprovoking cars with few negative aspects that last fairly well for years, and now they have taken the plunge into car making that can also look (relatively) good.
I had 50 MPG in 1980 with a VW Rabbit.
I now have 50 MPG with a 2002 Jetta TDI.
We could all have 50 MPG NOW if CARB would dump their “off by over 300%” math and allow small displacement Diesels in the USA today.
I regularly got over 40 mpg in a 97 Saturn SL2. Sold it with 150K miles and never in the shop for ANYTHING other than regular maintenance. Every small/medium sized car produced today should meet or exceed that.
I don’t think that building an ugly car should cost less than building an awesome looking car. – Corolla, Versa, SCION, Mitsu…
40 is the new 20. Sorry, I just had to say it :).
Attractive, highly-competitive products? All the more reason for a Washington/UAW witchhunt against Korea.
THANK YOU TTAC.
This is the first time I’ve seen, on the web or in print, the CAFE MPG for a car quoted in a story that mentions mandated average fuel economy.
How I wish that the EPA would actually do accurate MPG tests. Maybe they could make a test track out of the tunnel for the supercollider in Texas that never got built.
Move over Civic and Mazda3, in terms of outstanding design and value, the 2011 Elantra looks like the new benchmark in the C-segment. Someone please wake the Corolla and tell it to go home.
The old Geo Metros had a 1 liter 3 cylinder and regularly achieved 50 mpg.
Couldn’t Hyundai meet the 50 mpg target now by offering an Accent with a 1 liter engine with a turbocharger and a numerically low final drive ratio (say 3.00:1)? The final drive ratio on my 2010 Accent is 4.056 and it turns 3000 rpm at 60 mph in 5th gear which seems a little high. A concentrated effort at weight reduction might pay off as well. Hell, go whole hog and offer the 1.0 as a turbodiesel and get 60 mpg.
If American drivers were willing to put up with slower, less powerful cars we could see some higher MPG numbers. If we were willing to put up with lighter, decontented cars–same deal. The challenge to the engineers is keeping all of the content (weight) and power that the market demands and achieving the kind of numbers that those old CRXs and Metros could do.
I have also seen the new Elantra in-person and Michael is correct. It is much better looking in the flesh than any photos or video you might have seen. Having sat in one, I can tell you the materials, design and execution of the interior is where things really get interesting. I thought its interior was on par with the most recent generation of Sonata. For the price point, this car is going to be huge for Hyundai.
Beware of the claims that this 2011 Elantra gets 40 mpg….Hyundai must have tested it in a vacuum doing less than 60 mph. I just bought one and the best I have gotten with it is 32 mpg, not driving over 75 mph on cruise. I really like the style but the gas mileage is way short of 40 mpg. They will not take it back….I bought it because it was supposed to be so frugal on gas. My V-6 Fusion gets better gas mileage….
Just had to comment on (1st) the Honda civic , I have an 06 LX with 110,000 A/T freeway driving on the west coast I get 36-38, I set it on cruise @ about 67 mph usually about 2 mph over the posted limit, I think tickets defeat the purpose of good fuel economey. Inland like Utah/AZ/Texas I have gotten 40-44, because the gas mixture is different on the west coast. I pick up a new 2011 elantra tomorrow, that would be Feb 8th 2011. When I test drove one for about 1 mile on the freeway, that’s getting on and off the freeway, I averaged 38 mpg. I will add some figures to this in a few weeks of drivng the NEW Elantra.