LOS ANGELES — Hyundai isn’t ready to give up on small cars, even if some automakers and consumers are.
The company released images of the seventh-generation Hyundai Elantra compact sedan prior to a formal introduction next week in Los Angeles, underscoring a more aggressive design direction compared with the clean but somewhat bland outgoing model.
While the Detroit 3 forfeit the territory, Hyundai is the latest automaker — following Honda, Toyota and Nissan — attempting to spark new interest in a market segment that remains large but shrank another 16 percent in 2019.
A key element of the exterior design on the 2021 Elantra is the union of three character lines at a single point on the front doors, creating what Hyundai calls its “polyhedral appearance.”
“This formation is a daring challenge, which has been avoided in car design, marking Elantra’s disrupter spirit,” the automaker said in a statement.
On the interior, the focus is on the driver, with side-by-side displays for instrumentation and infotainment.
“Low and wide structures go from the door and connect all the way to the center console, while the large interface consisting of two harmoniously integrated displays elevates the racing-inspired feel of the car,” the automaker said.
The redesigned Elantra is longer, lower and wider than the outgoing model, Hyundai said, and features the look of a four-door coupe, with a sloping roof at the rear as part of its “Parametric Dynamics” design theme.
