Well, these are two pretty similar cars we have here! It's only details that could potentially make the difference. Considering they both belong to the small family car segment and utilize the same 4-door sedan body style and the front wheel drive system, it all comes up to the specific petrol engine choice they offer. The first one has a Peugeot-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 115hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 130hp engine designed by Hyundai.

The fact that the Peugeot got tested by the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), while the other contender didn't, isn't really an advantage, taken the poor 3-star rating it received. Moving further on, let's take a closer look at some additional safety-related facts. Both vehicles belong to the small family car segment, which is generally classifying them somewhere in the middle safety-wise, but it doesn't do much to help us decide between the two. On the other hand, taking kerb weight as an important factor into account, the Korean car offers a marginal difference of 7% more metal.

Reliability is not the best thing to consider on the make level, but it is worth mentioning that both brands display similar results in faults and breakdowns, all the models observed together. These are the results of an independent reasearch, while our visitors describe reliability of Peugeot with an average rating of 4.3, and models under the Hyundai badge with 4.5 out of 5. Some independent research have also placed 301 as average reliability-wise, and Elantra is more or less at the same level.Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as the French car rank it on average as 1.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.8 out of 5.

Peugeot is a bit more agile, reaching 100km/h in 0.4 seconds less than its competitor. Still, it lacks the power to win the top speed competition, topping at 188 kilometers per hour, 12km/h less than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy things look pretty much the same for both cars, averaging around 6.5 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (44 mpg), in combined cycle.

Hyundai is apparently more reliable, not too much, but just enough. The most important thing when deciding between any two vehicles should always be safety, both passive and active. In my opinion, everything taken into account, the French car offers slightly better overall protection and takes the lead. It all continues in the same direction, with Peugeot offering somewhat better performance, just enough to call it quicker. It does come at a cost though, and that's the fuel consumption... No mistake, whatever you decide here, but I'd still go for the Hyundai. In any case that's my personal view, built upon all the data available to me. What should decide here though is the way you feel about the two vehicles, and I hope you'll find my guidelines useful in the process. In case you have two minutes to spare I invite you to define your needs, desires and budget and see which car would be chosen by the virtual adviser™, among more than 12.000 different ones in our database.