South Korea's Hyundai Motor Co. has launched an all-new subcompact in China to help revive local sales hit hard by ongoing political tension between the two countries, the company said Tuesday.
Beijing Hyundai Motor Co., a joint venture set up between Hyundai Motor and BAIC Motor Corp. in 2002, unveiled the fully revamped All New Reina subcompact, the company said in a statement.
It said sales have begun with emphasis placed on drawing in younger consumers.
The carmaker first launched the Reina in the world's largest automobile market in 2010 and sold an accumulated 1.16 million units as of August, the company said.
The All New Reina comes with a 1.4-liter gasoline engine and with a five-speed manual transmission or a four-speed automatic transmission, it said.
Beijing Hyundai said the new vehicle sports a modern design, excellent fuel economy and class-leading torque, as well as a host of safety features such as electronic stability control and hill-start assist control.
This year, the maker of the Sonata sedan and Santa Fe SUV has suffered sharp declines in its sales in China in the wake of the diplomatic row over Seoul's decision to deploy an advanced U.S. missile defense system, called THAAD, on its soil. Beijing has explicitly opposed THAAD arguing the system could be used to spy on its military.
In the January-July period, Hyundai sold 351,292 vehicles in China, down 41 percent from 592,785 units a year earlier.
