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I thought I would share my thoughts on the situation.
If the Santa Cruz is still in the plans, it looks like they decided to do a normal introduction timeline where you might get a production teaser a few months before the actual unveiling. The vehicle was always at least 2-3 years away.
It would actually be pretty unusual for a company to announce something will be going into production development several years before it goes on sale.
Several issues if you do make an early announcement:
We do know that Hyundai has been working on the design for at least 2 years now so unless there was a major change it should still be on track for production in about 2 years.
For comparison, the previous generation Camaro also went through a similar situation. The Camaro concept was unveiled in January 2006 to much fanfare. The production version did not go on sale until the 2010 model year. Here is a car which took already existing powertrains and platform, and still took 4 years between concept and production.
If the Santa Cruz is still in the plans, it looks like they decided to do a normal introduction timeline where you might get a production teaser a few months before the actual unveiling. The vehicle was always at least 2-3 years away.
It would actually be pretty unusual for a company to announce something will be going into production development several years before it goes on sale.
Several issues if you do make an early announcement:
- It tells the competition what you are doing and gives them time to respond;
- You lock in buyer's design expectations which gives Hyundai less freedom to make changes to make the vehicle more suitable for production;
- Most importantly, people become impatient since they do they not realize that the average development cycle time can range anywhere from 3 to 7 years, which is a very long time.
We do know that Hyundai has been working on the design for at least 2 years now so unless there was a major change it should still be on track for production in about 2 years.
For comparison, the previous generation Camaro also went through a similar situation. The Camaro concept was unveiled in January 2006 to much fanfare. The production version did not go on sale until the 2010 model year. Here is a car which took already existing powertrains and platform, and still took 4 years between concept and production.
