2011 HYUNDAI SONATA: NA PETROL MOTOR JOINED BY A TURBO AND HYBRID

The 2011 Hyundai Sonata is India bound with a petrol engine. That’s something we already know. But what we don’t is whether Hyundai India will bring in a Turbo Petrol engined Sonata to India.  Hyundai launched the Sonata Turbo Petroll at the2010 New York Motor Show and at the launch announced that the car buyers in the United States will be able to buy the turbo petrol shortly.

The 2.0 liter GDI turbocharged engine pumps out a healthy 274 hp at 6,000 rpm and 364 Nm of torque from only 1800 rpm. Along with these healthy power and torque figures, Hyundai claims that the Sonata will return 22 miles per gallon in the city and 34 mpg on the highway. Very respectable fuel efficiency figures indeed.

After the Turbo petrol surprise, Hyundai pulled off another surprise in the form of aHybrid Version of the 2011 Sonata. The 2011 Sonata Hybrid features a  2.4-liter, 169-horsepower 4-cylinder petrol engine and a 40-horsepower lithium ion powered electric motor. This makes the Sonata Hybrid good enough for a claimed 37 mpg city/39 mpg  highway.

According to Hyundai, its hybrid hops power delivery to gearbox and instead lets its electric motors to directly power the vehicles wheels, which the Korean automaker believes will let the new Sonata operate at higher speeds on electric power alone. This makes the Sonata Hybrid significantly different from conventional hybrids most of which rely on the gearbox to transit the electric power to the wheels.

So, that is one factor that will endow the Sonata Hybrid with some more poke from the electric motor, and that’s a good thing. Over to the consumers for their verdict.