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2017 Hyundai i30 expected to achieve five star safety rating

Brand still undecided whether AEB will be standard across range


While vehicle safety is important across all segments, it's arguably family vehicles that require the closest attention to detail, which is why Hyundai is still making a call on final safety specifications for the all-new Hyundai i30.

With the vehicle due to go on sale locally in April, Hyundai is yet to lock in a standard specification for the range, which means AEB may not be available on entry level models.

Speaking to media today at the global launch of the all-new i30, Hyundai Australia chief operating officer Scott Grant told media that AEB may come at the cost of extra vehicle gadgets.

"There's lots of really good cars that don't get five stars. I think our car will get a five star, let's be clear about that. We're talking about higher technology and specs and there's always a balance to fit them into the car for the price and value to meet the customer requirements," Grant said.

"The product [i30] isn't developed in Australia, it's developed overseas. We can put forward our case and argue for and against, but some things just can't happen. Yes, we try and fit what's required for Australians, but we are also constrained a little bit by what's happening globally.

"We have not at this moment placed our first production order, which will occur in March. The final grade line up and specification pricing will be finalised in the next 10 days for us to meet that March order requirement. We have a lot of input on a model like this because Australia is an important part of i30 volume," added Grant.

It would be disappointing if Hyundai skimmed past AEB across the range in lieu of a standard set of alloy wheels or an aesthetic technology item. In fact, it would launch behind the updated Mazda 3, which recently received AEB as standard fitment across the range.

"I'm not sure, I can't confirm it. We'd love all that specification to be there, it makes perfect sense especially in aspects of the fleet market where it's an important part of the shopping process. But you've got to balance pricing and packaging to match the competition and the customer," Grant said.

"We're not solely driven by that [AEB], we'd love to include more specification and enhance the customer's owner experience with those technologies, but we need to deliver to our capability and cost base to match customer expectations. I'm not sure at this time whether we can do both."

Holden made the mistake of not including AEB across the Astra range, which meant the brand only received a five star ANCAP safety rating on the mid-specification RS and top-specification RS-V models.

Hopefully Hyundai won't make the same mistake and goes down the path of including AEB across all models, regardless of how much the customer spends.

Are you expecting to see AEB as standard fitment across the i30 range?

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