Ever since it was revealed back in 2019, the latest Hyundai Sonata’s styling has been a point of controversy. The car was originally slated to get a facelift some time around the 2023 model year, but a new report claims the car will instead get a full redesign, as its polarizing styling was supposedly leading to poor sales.
The report comes from Auto Post, who claims the news is from an internal announcement at Hyundai. Sonata sales in the automaker’s home market of Korea have not been meeting their standards, which they believe is caused by the car’s controversial design. The push to the more distinctive styling of the Sonata has somewhat backfired, as the buyers who are actually interested in that kind of styling are all choosing the Kia K5, while the rest are looking at more conservative designs.
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Auto Post also reports that while other Hyundai and Kia models are struggling to keep up with demand, only 506 of the 1,200 gasoline and LPG-powered Sonatas built at their factory in August were requested for allocation. The hybrid, however, has had an allocation request for a supply of only 450 units.
To resolve that, instead of the facelift planned for sometime around the 2023 model year, a full redesign is on the cards. The changes are expected to be primarily aesthetic, with the current crop of powertrain options likely remaining unchanged. That being said, the car may gain some of Hyundai’s newer tech features.
With any luck, we’ll see a new Sonata that’s distinctive and at the same time appealing to a wider audience, possibly with styling that’s more in line with cars like the Elantra, Tucson, and Santa Cruz.