Hyundai isn’t quite ready yet to completely yank the curtains off its new generation 2015 Sonata, but it is willing to share the first official drawing and preliminary details ahead of an unveiling in South Korea later this month, and a world premiere at the New York International Auto Show in mid-April.
Many of you may recall the waves Hyundai made with the current, sixth generation model (codenamed YF) when it presented it back in 2009, with its swoopy shape that reminded in some ways of the Mercedes-Benz CLS and Volkswagen CC, garnering a lot of positive attention.
The Sonata went on to become one of Hyundai’s best sellers with over 200,000 deliveries in its first year on the market in North America, rising to 230,605 in 2012, before dropping to 203,648 units in 2013.
Hyundai hopes it can repeat, if not surpass, the success of the YF with the new model, promising improvements on all levels to compete against an array of mid-size cars like the Toyota Camry, Ford Fusion and Nissan Altima
The Koreans describe the 2015MY’s design as more refined and premium looking, and we’ll add, more serious, judging from the first teaser, which looks very close to Carscoops’ rendering made by Josh Byrnes (see below). Like the new Genesis, the 2015 Sonata implements Hyundai’s more chiseled ‘Fluidic Sculpture 2.0’ design language.
We don’t get a picture of the cabin, but Hyundai describes it thusly:
“Its interior design aligns with the premium exterior, adopting consistent design details that fully reflect careful consideration of ergonomics and intuitive operation. The horizontally designed cabin gives off a stable feeling, and tailored design specifications for all materials and master craftsmanship-level finish strengthen the Sonata’s premium image.”
It also mentions that it has tidied up and grouped a number of switches to facilitate “easier control” and moved up the infotainment screen to “minimize distraction”.
Finally, Hyundai says it has placed a lot of effort to improve the Sonata’s safety credentials through a series of measures including expanding the use of Advanced-High Strength Steel (AHSS), on the platform (from 21 percent to 51 percent) and increasing the use of structure adhesive by more than 10 times over previous models. As a result, the new Sonata’s torsional and bending stiffness is said to have increased more than 40 percent compared to the current model.
“Internal tests suggest that the all-new Sonata will score “Good” at IIHS’s small overlap test,” said Hyundai.
For now and until we get more info on the new Sonata, we’ll leave you with the official teaser sketch and our own rendering from 2013.
By John Halas
Photo Renderings Copyright: Carscoops / Josh Byrnes
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