Hyundai, one of the main beneficiaries of the UK’s car scrappage scheme thanks to the timely introduction of its small i10 and i20 models, is preparing for the end of the sales booster with a scheme of its own.
It has launched ‘Trade and Upgrade’ which offers customers the opportunity to trade in any brand vehicles between seven and 10 years old and in return they will get GBP2,000 off a new Hyundai.
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Hyundai UK managing director Tony Whitehorn said: “It’s sort of our own scrappage scheme although these cars will not be scrapped, they will be sold on by dealers on the basis that each of these old vehicles is worth at least GBP500 or GBP600, which goes some way to funding the scheme.”
The company has also launched its ‘Happy Returns’ scheme which allows people to trade in cars bought within the past few months under the scrappage scheme, exchanging them for a new model for as little as GNP499 on an i10 or GBP749 on a larger i30.
Whitehorn said: “We are already getting a lot of interest in these incentives – some 40 registrations in the first 10 days of the Trade and Upgrade scheme.
“Scrappage has worked very well for us because we have come to market with the right models at the right time in terms of the i10 and i20. Our scrappage sale reached 30,000 vehicles last year on a total sales volume of 57,000.”
The scrappage incentive was due to run out at the end of this month but has been extended by the government through to the end of March.
Whitehorn said this is not as benevolent as it seems. “The reason the scheme has been extended is because there is still some money left over as scrappage sales have slowed since the turn of the year.
“The number of scrappage sales by the end of February is likely to be around 360,000, 40,000 short of the budgeted amount – or about GBP40m.”
The plan now is for 32,000 vehicles to be allocated to manufacturers on the basis of their retail share between May and December last year.
Whitehorn added: “We would have liked this to be more equitable and based on the share of scrappage sales. Hyundai’s share of scrappage sales was about 12% whereas our retail share was 6% so we are only going to get about half the allocation we would like.”
The remaining 8,000 will be more evenly spread around.
