Hyundai-Sime Darby Motors (HSDM) has officially introduced the Elantra 1.6 Executive in Malaysia, nearly six months after the 1.6 Premium originally landed in Malaysia. The new entry-level variant is also fully imported from South Korea, and it is going at an introductory price of RM 139,888.
That makes it about RM 19k cheaper than the
Premium. So, what are the features that have been omitted to bring the price
down? Quite a few things, but mostly to do with the interior. The Executive
model gets black fabric upholstery with white contrast stitching, manual
seating adjustment, and a more conventional analogue instrumentation with a
4.2-inch multi-info display on the rightmost side of the panel.
It also loses out on the heating and
ventilation function for the front seats, and the heated steering wheel (still
leather-wrapped with the requisite multifunction controls) function and
wireless smartphone charging tray have been removed, too. The electrochromic
rear-view mirror also gets omitted. Another compromise HSDM had to make was to
offer just the basic functionalities of Hyundai SmartSense. The Executive only
gets passive cruise control, blind-spot collision warning, and rear
cross-traffic alert. Other advanced safety assist systems such as AEB (with
pedestrian and cyclist detection), adaptive cruise control, high beam assist and
lane keeping assist have been stripped from the list.
That’s pretty much it in terms of
differences. Otherwise, it shares the same LED projector headlights, LED
combination tail lights with continuous light strip, 17-inch dual-tone alloy
wheels, floating eight-inch display with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, as
well as the 1.6 litre Smartstream engine (123 PS, 154 Nm) and intelligent
variable transmission with four drive modes.
