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Amid the trend for producing mild hybrids (with a small battery that doesn’t drive the car, merely assisting the combustion engine), Hyundai has dared to be different by not fitting such a system to its small hatchback.
If truth be told, such modern mild hybrid systems have the air of snake oil about them, adding at most a couple of MPG to the economy of the standard petrol version, while allowing manufacturers to pin a fashionable “hybrid” badge to the boot.
Doing away with a mild-hybrid system is no bad thing. Its extra battery beneath the i20’s boot floor sapped boot space, not to mention bumping up the price. With this car, Hyundai aims to boost the i20’s appeal to small-car buyers who need more space for less cash.
Pros
- Roomy interior
- Boot much larger than before and more flexible
- Generous equipment
Cons
- Slight loss of performance
- Cheap-feeling interior
- Not as fuel efficient as the best rivals
Bargain basement
In doing so, Hyundai is going after the fertile furrow Dacia has ploughed with the Sandero. It’s not alone, though; cut-price, entry-level versions of the Renault Clio, Peugeot 208 and Vauxhall Corsa are also available.
Commensurately, the i20 range now starts with the aggressively affordable Element, for a tenner more than £20,000. For that, you get alloy wheels, electric front and rear windows, cruise control, rear parking sensors, a rear-view camera and a 10.25in touchscreen, making it surprisingly well equipped for the cash.
Our Tech Line test car sits two rungs up the range, adding climate control, ambient lighting, heated seats, a heated steering wheel and so on, all for just more than £24,000. That feels like good value, while Hyundai’s five-year, unlimited-mileage warranty is reassuring.
There’s only one engine and the loss of the mild hybrid shove means power is down 10bhp to 89bhp, although that’s hardly the end of the world in an economy-conscious supermini such as this. You can specify a dual-clutch automatic gearbox on every version, too, making this one of the few cars to provide that option on the cheapest model.
Interior appointments
We’ve never been a huge fan of the i20’s interior, and first inspection of this face-lifted car reveals that not much has changed.
You can choose between black or grey fabric with this version; the latter is better, because the grey interior plastics feel like something you’d have found in a Hyundai from 20 years ago. Yet a general sense of cheapness pervades the interior no matter which colour option you choose, with lots of shiny, hard black plastic; by contrast, the tactile fabrics of the French 208 and Clio feel far more upmarket.
But where the i20’s interior succeeds is in usability. There’s an old-fashioned, analogue feel, with its manual handbrake and lots of large, easy-to-use buttons.
There is a touchscreen, although it only operates the sat nav and entertainment systems and settings menus, so you don’t have to find your way around it too often. And beneath it sits a dedicated climate control panel with buttons for every function – something you don’t get in many small cars these days.
There’s plenty of space, too. In the front, it’s easy enough to get a comfortable driving position, with lots of nooks for your odds and ends. Rear-seat space is even more impressive, better than most hatchbacks of this size.
Because of the deletion of the hybrid battery, the boot provides 352 litres of space – up from 262 litres – putting the i20 closer to the best in the class (that being the Clio, with 391 litres).
What’s more, Hyundai has gone to the effort of adding a false floor that can either be set at the level of the load lip, to aid sliding in heavy bags or hide small items beneath, or lower it to maximise overall load volume. This set-up is now quite common in estates and SUVs, but rare in a car of this size.
On the road
So removing the mild hybrid element of the power train has boosted the i20’s practicality, but has it had an effect on the way it drives? Well, not really – although that’s mainly because the i20 isn’t the kind of car to get you excited by a challenging road.
The extra urge of the now-deleted battery used to fill in lower down the rev range, whereas now the i20’s 1.0-litre three-cylinder engine feels a little less gutsy low-down than the best of these small-capacity turbocharged engines.
Yet it’s tractable enough and revs quite happily if you wish, with enough power to keep up with traffic. It’s comparatively quiet, too; there’s a little bit of the familiar three-cylinder warble, but it feels more refined than similar engines from Peugeot and Volkswagen.
At higher speeds, the i20 feels even more polished. Wind and road noise are well damped and the ride quality is good, softer and less controlled than that of most small cars, which means it feels a bit stodgy and wafty over large bumps, but the trade-off is that it doesn’t thump and crash its way through smaller ones.
That sense of stodge isn’t restricted to the suspension; it’s present in the steering too, so the i20 feels slower to respond to inputs and less direct as a result. Yet there is plenty of grip, so rapid direction changes aren’t an issue; hustling an i20 along a back road is safe and secure, rather than fun.
Not that most i20s will be doing much of that. Many will spend their lives in town, where the vague clutch and slightly delayed accelerator take some getting used to, and drivers need a knack to pull away smoothly from a standstill.
The Telegraph verdict
On the whole, though, the i20 is pleasant enough to drive. Combined with the much-improved practicality, the long warranty and the amount of equipment, that’s enough to make it a decent buy.
It’s all the better for the removal of its mild-hybrid tech – which, to be frank, didn’t do much anyway, simply making this i20 model less practical and more expensive.
There’s more joy in rivals such as the Renault Clio, while the Dacia Sandero still beats them all on sheer value. But the i20’s solid, pragmatic way of doing things makes it a very sensible small car – and one that’s now better than ever.
The facts
On test: Hyundai i20 1.0 Tech Line
Body style: five-door hatchback
On sale: now
How much? £24,915 on the road
How fast? 112mph, 0-62mph in 11.5sec
How economical? 47.1mpg (WLTP Combined)
Engine & gearbox: 998cc three-cylinder petrol engine, six-speed manual gearbox, front-wheel drive
Maximum power/torque: 89bhp/127lb ft
CO2 emissions: 136g/km (WLTP Combined)
VED: £560 first year, then £200
Warranty: five years / unlimited miles
Spare wheel as standard: no (not available)
The rivals
Renault Clio Hybrid 145 Esprit Alpine
143bhp, 64.2mpg, £24,995 on the road
The current Clio is a bargain: this top-of-the-range, full-hybrid version costs only £80 more than the mid-range Hyundai. The warranty isn’t as lengthy, however.
Vauxhall Corsa 1.2 Turbo 100 GS
99bhp, 53.3mpg, £23,985 on the road
Cheaper to buy and run than the Hyundai, but not quite as well equipped, nor as roomy – and, again, with a shorter warranty.
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