Hyundai's Accent: No Longer the Cheapest Small Car, but 40 MPG is Magic
The all-new 2012 Hyundai Accent starts at $12,445, over two grand more than this year's model, and that means ceding the "cheapest car in America" crown to the $10,750 Nissan Versa. Hyundai has lost that battle -- but with more econo car for the money, it's quite likely to win the larger war for consumers' hearts and minds. And a big reason for that is the 40 highway mpg every model delivers.
A step up
Unlike the cut-rate Accent you can buy now, the new car (sedan or hatch) feels solid and built to last with quality materials. It's slightly bigger than the old one, and styled like a mini Elantra. It's also a step up from many other subcompacts.
Until recently, it didn't matter much all that much what piece of junk automakers dumped on the budget end of their product lines. GM sold such horrors as the Geo Metro and the Chevrolet Aveo (made in Korea at a time when that was a bad thing), and a few budget-minded people bought them -- but the real market was elsewhere. These days, people buy about the same number of fuel-efficient small cars as they do large SUVs, and suddenly the segment is competitive again.
Hyundai still offers bargain cars, but now some of the savings will come over time from that 40-mpg fuel economy. That means Hyundai loses a longtime claim of producing some of the most affordable cars in all its segments. But there's a lot of compensation in building "Hyundai equals quality" awareness. As an unidentified Hyundai executive told Inside Line:
We're walking away from the lowest-priced-car-in-America game. We got initial buzz out of that, then you guys would test it and advise consumers to buy a used Ford Focus.Indeed, I'd tell people exactly that, because there's nothing worse than a car that feels cheap even when it's brand new. And yesterday's budget Hyundais, including the Accent, were cheap in every sense of the word. In 1984, the big debate was over which was worse -- the Hyundai Excel ($4,999) or the Yugo ($3,990).
Accent on engineering
Hyundai's strategy with the Accent (on sale this summer) is interesting, and appears to be based on the theory that people will pay more to join the 40-mpg club. Indeed, it's a psychological threshold that people want to cross, unlike the one they don't -- $4 a gallon gas. The current Accent offers 36 mpg on the highway, which is close but not close enough.
Hyundai's more upscale Elantra comes reasonably equipped even on the entry-level $14,430 GLS, with a five-speed manual, air, a stereo, power everything -- stuff that costs extra on the Honda Civic. By contrast, the base intro-level Accent GLS puts all its emphasis on the engineering -- it lacks the radio and the air conditioning as standard, but it comes with a six-speed manual transmission and the segment's only direct-injection engine -- both key elements in achieving that 40 mpg rating. I doubt anyone outside of government agencies will order stripper Accents, and you won't be able to find them in showrooms -- but that intro model allows the company to advertise the $12,445 price.
Segment-hopping?
The danger for Hyundai here is that the upscale and loaded Accent, the SE, costs more than $17,000, and at that price consumers are going to look outside the segment entirely. For instance, at the all-new 41-mpg-on-the-highway Honda Civic HF. But that's still over $2,000 more.
The Accent makes its case: 40 mpg, which you'll still get even with the automatic (also a six-speed). There are other great cars in this segment, including that cheaper Nissan Versa. Its 34 mpg on the highway is good, but it may not be good enough.
Here's a tire-kicker review of the Accent from Cars.com:
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