Kia Seltos 5 seater has been launched in India. At the time of launch, Kia India announced that they have already received over 32,000 bookings for the Seltos. At the same time, they announced that no matter what, they will not close bookings of Seltos – thereby taking a dig at rival MG Hector, whose bookings are now closed for 2019.
MG Hector bookings were closed as the company does not have enough production capacity to meet demand. At the time of closing bookings, Hector had about 28,000 orders. The current production capacity of Hector is 2,000 units a month, which will be increased to 3,000 units a month by Oct 2019.
Kia India did not reveal what was the production capacity of Seltos, but they did say that their plant has production capacity of 3 lakh units a year. With ex-sh prices in the range of Rs 9.7 lakhs to Rs 16 lakhs, the new SUV takes on the likes of Hyundai Creta, Tata Harrier and MG Hector. Here is a brief comparison of MG Hector vs Kia Seltos on road prices across 11 cities in India.
Base petrol variant of MG Hector costs Rs 14.88 lakhs, on-road Delhi, while base petrol Kia Seltos costs 10.88 lakhs. Top end variant of MG Hector petrol manual costs Rs 17.8 lakhs for the regular model and Rs 18.5 lakh for the hybrid model.
7 DCT petrol top Hector costs Rs 19.53 lakhs. In comparison, Kia Seltos petrol manual top variant costs Rs 18.6 lakhs. Automatic option is not offered with Kia Seltos top variant. It will be launched at a later date.
Taking diesel MG Hector base variant, the same is priced at Rs 15.8 lakhs while top variant costs Rs 18.5 lakhs. Automatic variant is not offered with Hector diesel. Kia Seltos diesel manual base model costs Rs 11.5 lakhs. Top diesel Seltos manual costs Rs 17.8 lakhs while the diesel 6 AT auto costs Rs 19 lakhs.
Ahmedabad has the lowest on road prices in the list, while Bangalore has the highest. The price difference on variant to variant is as much as Rs 2 lakhs. Prices in Bangalore are higher due to higher local taxes.
Taking a look at the prices of both Kia Seltos and the MG Hector, the MG Hector does feel more value fore money. Not only it is more spacious, it also comes with more features and more powerful engine options.
