Hyundai Grand i10 Nios vs Toyota Etios Cross

It has been nearly six months since the zippy Hyundai Grand i10 Nios joined CarWale's long-term fleet. Its agility in city traffic has been a constant delight, making commutes and errand runs a breeze. With the odometer ticking past the 13,000km mark, it was time for its scheduled service visit to the Hyundai service center.

It’s a crossover… It’s a hatchback… No, we don’t know! And since we don’t have a name for this segment of cars, we are going to begin by christening them Hatchovers! The Etios Cross is the latest entrant to this India-specific segment, where the cars look rugged and bulky like crossovers, but offer pretty much the same utility as that of a hatchback. It may be a unique distinction for the Indian automotive market, but not something that we should be proud of. What exactly is the purpose of the hatchover then? What made manufacturers like Volkswagen, Skoda and Toyota enter this segment? Is it just a passing fad or will we see more vehicles of this kind in future? We spend some time with the Etios Cross to get to the bottom of this riddle.

We have been using the Grand i10 Nios for a couple of months now. This time around we tell you our impressions after spending a considerable amount of time driving it in and around the city.