Hyundai Motor India on Thursday launched premium sedan Elantra to fill the gap between its mid-size car Accent and luxury sedan Sonata.

The Elantra comes in both petrol and diesel engines.

The GT model has been priced at Rs 869,000 (ex-showroom), the GLS at Rs 959,000 and the Common Rail Direct injection (CRDi) at Rs 10.49 lakh (Rs1 million), its managing director J I Kim told a news conference.

"With the launch of Elantra, we have filled the gap between Accent and Sonata. We believe many Santro and Accent customers will upgrade to Elantra," HMIL president B V R Subbu said.

HMIL, India's second-biggest carmaker, is in the process of augmenting production capacity to 250,000 units annually at its plant on the outskirts of Chennai.

The company manufactures Santro, Accent, and Sonata at the Chennai plant while it brings sports utility vehicle Terracan as completely built units.

The Elantra, which will be pitted against cars like Skoda's Octavia and Toyota's Corolla, will be manufactured on the Sonata platform.

Initially, we would produce 8,000 units of Elantra. "We will manufacture 2,000 units of Sonata as the total capacity of the Sonata line is 10,000 units," Subbu said.

The Elantra will have 40 per cent indigenisatrion level.

With production reaching 250,000 units in August this year, Hyundai will launch premium compact car Getz in the second quarter of this year.

Elantra got a major facelift in 2003, Subbu said.

The two petrol models of Elantra come fitted with a 1.8 litre engine, while the CRDi has a two-litre engine.

The car has features like dual airbags, passenger presence detector and glass antenna.

The company's brand ambassador Shah Rukh Khan was also present on the occasion.

The company's sales grew by a 53 per cent to 171,000 units during last fiscal against 112,000 units during 2002-03.

Sales of Santro stood 135,000 units, Accent at 34,594 lakh units, Sonata at 1,224 units and Terracan at 318 units during 2003-04.

Exports grew by a massive 370 per cent to 42,113 units.