Hyundai i30 N automatic gearbox confirmed for early 2020; will be shared with rest of group

The long-awaited automatic gearbox for the Hyundai i30 N will at last make its international debut next year, with the brand’s performance boss planning a Korean launch in early 2020. 

The gearbox, an eight-speed dual-clutch transmission, won’t be an N-exclusive product, with performance chief Albert Biermann confirming it would be shared with the rest of the Hyundai range. 

But Mr Biermann says the DCT will perform very differently in an N-badged product than it would in a regular Hyundai vehicle.

“Next year it will come into N car. So early 2020 in the Korean market,” Mr Biermann told CarsGuide.

“It will also go into other vehicles, not only into an N. But when it lives in an N it (feels) a different transmission to when it lives in an SUV.”

Ealier reports had the gearbox arriving in 2019 – though Mr Biermann insists early 2020 was always the plan – but Hyundai is promising it will have been worth the wait, describing the N Mode function specifially as “unbelievable”.

“It’s our own in-house development, and we did it so it can meet many cars, but the way we’re applying it and tuning it in an N is a whole different story to how we would for an SUV with a diesel engine,” he says.

“You could never tell it’s the same transmission. The N mode is unbelievable.”