Hyundai Veloster could soon be dead

Hyundai seems to be readying an axe for its performance focused model Veloster. The performance hatchback from the South Korean auto major entered into business nearly a decade ago. Despite initial success in sales, the Hyundai Veloster’s demand in the last few years has consistently dried up, especially since 2016, as the large crossovers and SUVs emerged as the new favourites of the consumers.

The entire auto industry suffered from the devastating impacts of the Coronavirus crisis and lockdowns last year. However, the Hyundai Veloster’s sales slumped significantly in US, by nearly 50% to 7,581 units, as compared to 12,849 units registered in 2019. In comparison to that, Hyundai cumulatively sold a total of 622,269 vehicles in the US market in 2020.

With the mounting pressure of drying sales, Hyundai seems to be planning to discontinue the Veloster. Recently, the automaker has asked the dealers to clear out their stock of Veloster. The carmaker is even incentivizing the dealers to clear out the inventory of the Veloster.

Hyundai is reportedly offering a special Final Pay incentive that has been designed to help its dealers to clear out the stock, and this scheme is reportedly working as well. In the US market, almost 200 Velosters have been sold in recent times. Many of these models belong to the high-performance N trims.

However, the company is yet to officially announce the discontinuation of the Veloster. It claimed that there are 2021 model year versions of Veloster, Veloster Turbo and Veloster N in dealer or port stocks.

The US consumers have always been keen towards the SUVs, pickup trucks and large powerful vehicles. Hatchbacks usually struggled in the market, which resulted in Ford discontinuing Fiesta and Focus, Volkswagen introducing only Golf GTI and Golf R variants in the country. The Hyundai Veloster too seems to be the victim of that trend.