Diwali Special: Top 10 Cars With Ambient Lighting Priced Under Rs 20 Lakh

If you find yourself driving a lot at night, this feature can light up your mood and the cabin too

It’s that time of the year again where the festival of lights is upon us and everything looks a little brighter and more colourful at night. It seems mass-market carmakers have also taken note of people’s love for colourful lights and have finally started introducing ambient lighting into cabins of their more attainable products. A feature previously restricted to the luxury segment is now offered on many cars with a price tag lower than Rs 20 lakh, and these are our top 10 picks:

MG Hector - from Sharp trim priced at Rs 18.75 lakh

The Hector is the priciest and largest car here to offer ambient lighting from the factory and yet not at the top of our list. Here, the illumination is more thorough as it covers the front footwells, the cupholders and the front and rear door pockets. However, MG only offers the choice of eight colours with the choice of a shuffle mode that would change between them at programmed intervals.

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Maruti Suzuki Grand Vitara/Toyota Hyryder

Zeta+ Hybrid/ G Hybrid, priced from Rs 17.99 lakh/ Rs 17.49 lakh 

We’re counting two cars as one here since they are nearly identical to one another in terms of their features and mechanical specifications. While both compact SUVs come with illumination for the inside door handles, its the pricier hybrid variant that adds a light strip under the passenger-side of the dashboard as well. The ambient lighting is in a single shade - white.

Hyundai Alcazar - Offered as standard, starts from Rs 15.89 lakh

The Alcazar has many similarities with the Kia Carens, which includes the 64-colour ambient lighting. However, it has a slightly different cabin layout and so the illuminated areas are slightly different. It features light strips under the dashboard and the front door handles and you can control their brightness via the infotainment system. The Hyundai MPV’s ambient lighting is good, but doesn’t look as good as that of the Kia Carens.

Kia Carens - from Luxury trim priced at Rs 15.3 lakh

The premium MPV from Kia offers a colourful cabin thanks to the illuminated areas such as strips across the dashboard, and diffused lights over the front and rear door armrests, and the front door pockets too. What makes this model’s ambient lighting setup that much more appealing is its ability to cycle between 64 colours.

• Kia Carens price
• Maruti Grand Vitara price

Kia Seltos - from HTX trim priced at Rs 14.45 lakh

Next we have the most fun type of cabin lighting available in the compact SUV segment, courtesy of the Kia Seltos. Only the front door pockets and the passenger-side of the dashboard are illuminated, but the lights near the front speakers are part of a feature called sound mood lighting. They change in colour and intensity to match the rhythm of the audio being played through the car’s infotainment system. Meanwhile, the light strip on the dashboard lights up in a single colour - red.

Volkswagen Taigun/Virtus 

From Highline trim, prices start at Rs 13.56 lakh (SUV)/Rs 13.18 lakh (sedan)

Once again clubbing two models together as they have many similarities about their cabin lighting features. The Taigun and Virtus offer an underglow ambient lighting that spans the width of the dashboard. While this feature is also available on the Skoda-badged siblings of both these models, namely the Kushaq and Slavia, the Volkswagen models have one advantage.

The German marque places the sportier engine option for the SUV and sedan under a separate line of variants, called the GT Line. These variants have the same illumination, but in a sporty red colour. This red ambient lighting is not offered on their Skoda counterparts.

Maruti Brezza - from ZXi+ trim priced at Rs 12.3 lakh

Maruti seems to have entered an entirely different side of the mass-market with the new-generation Brezza. A far more premium offering than before, it even comes with blue ambient lighting that illuminates the footwells, the central console storage area, and also the door cards. If only it offered a choice of colours, it would have easily placed above the Sonet in our list.

Kia Sonet - from HTX+ trim priced at Rs 12.25 lakh

The Kia Sonet’s ambient lighting package is quite similar to that of its larger sibling. Here the lighting is limited to the LEDs near the front door pockets that offer sound mood lighting. It’s not the best cabin lighting in the segment, but remains the most interesting version to be offered directly by the carmaker.

Hyundai i20 - from Asta trim priced at Rs 8.85 lakh

That’s right, cars priced below Rs 10 also come with ambient lighting these days. In the Hyundai i20, you’ll find the footwells, the central console storage area and in the front door pockets. In the regular variants of the premium hatchback, these areas are illuminated in blue. However, if you were to consider the sportier N Line version, they light up red.

Tata Altroz - from XZ trim priced at Rs 8.2 lakh

Last but not least, we have the Tata Altroz with a distinctive form of ambient lighting compared to most cars listed above. The centre section of its dashboard that houses the central AC vents and the infotainment system is like an island on its own, and Tata has backlit it in light blue. The front footwells and the central console storage are also illuminated in the same hue.

• Hyundai i20 prices
• Tata Altroz prices

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