Four gears may make you Cross
pleasant without containing too much in the way of surprise-anddelight. Interior architecture is neat but very conservative and what may surprise buyers is the lack of any meaningful display/ touch-screen.
Just a little monochrome readout for radio stations, cellphone pairing and the like. That’s pretty surprising in an age where sub-$20k city cars have big colour displays with phoneprojection technology and satnav.
The Cross still gets a reversing camera though, thanks to Hyundai’s signature placement of a tiny display in the rearvision mirror. Other driver-assistance equipment includes lane departure warning, hill-start assist and tyre pressure monitoring for the 16-inch rubber. But no autonomous braking – another 2017 must-have that seems to have passed the i20 by.
Indeed, the i20’s recent fourstar Ancap rating has been greeted with shock and woe, but in fact it should have been no surprise. Hyundai NZ admitted the new car wouldn’t get any more than four when it launched the car to media in December 2016, because it lacks that autonomous braking/driver assist technology now essential for a full Ancap score.
Expect more of the same from budget cars under the new crash (or avoiding a crash) regime.
Hyundai’s Ioniq EV got the full stars in the same Ancap round, by the way.
If its any consolation, Hyundai isn’t alone in its powertrain woes. Sister brand (although also a rival brand in NZ) Kia is about to launch its latest Rio small-car, based on the same platform as the i20... with the same 1.4-litre engine and four-speed gearbox.
There will also be an SUV version of Rio, but early indications are that unlike the i20 Cross, it’ll have a different body shape and a different powertrain – probably with a six-speed automatic gearbox. Wait and see.