In an era of soaring gasoline prices, Hyundai Motor Co. is helping frugal-minded drivers meet the challenge of affordable transportation with its newly developed Kappa engine.

“The world is thinking small like never before: Smaller fuel consumption, smaller CO2 footprint, smaller overall emissions. Today small is beautiful and Hyundai is ready to answer the call to small with our new Kappa inline four cylinder engine,” said president and chief technology officer Lee Hyun-Soon.

The first car to have the Kappa engine installed will be the i10, which is 100 per cent produced at Hyundai Motor Co.’s Indian subsidiary in Chennai. Hyundai Motor India (HMI) launched the i10 in October 2007 and has sold 184,465 units as of the end of June, one of HMI’s best sellers.

Hyundai’s i10 minicar with a 1.25 litre Kappa engine will deliver a fuel economy rating of 5.0L/100km (47 mpg) in the European combined test cycle – for best in class performance. And Kappa runs cleaner than the competition: In the European combined test cycle, an i10 equipped with the Kappa engine produces just 119g/km of CO2 – far less than other models in its range.