Ask the good folks from Hybridcars.com what today’s big news was, and they’d probably point to their own scoop, titled Hyundai Has Prius-Killer in the Works. It can be hard for blogs to get OEM reps on the phone, and Hyundai’s product public relations manager Miles Johnson walked an enticingly vague line:
We are studying a dedicated Prius-fighter vehicle, meaning a hybrid-specific nameplate that isn’t based off a Sonata or a Santa Fe. It’s its own thing. We’ve also been studying plug-in hybrid technology, which is a bit farther out for us, but the near-term would be a Prius-sized vehicle… You can look at the dimensions of the Blue Will concept and see it would be a similar package and size to a Prius.
With Hyundai launching its first US-market hybrid, the Sonata, later this year, this is yet another sign of the big H’s relentless momentum, right? Well, not exactly…
What Hybridcars (among other “green car” sites) missed is that their scoop wasn’t really a scoop at all. Last Summer, shortly after the Blue-Will plug-in concept (pictured above) debuted, Hyundai-Kia global R&D boss Yang Woong-chul proclaimed to Automotive News [sub]:
We want to be the leader in fuel economy and alternative fuels. We want to show our technology and improve our image, not necessarily make money on hybrids… We want to get people to drive our cars. We need to get people to the dealerships… We’re going after Prius and the Volt with the plug-in,
AN [sub]’s headline for that piece? Hyundai plans sporty plug-in for U.S. by ’12. The industry paper even listed technical specs for the Blue-Will concept, then posing as a 2012 plug-in “Prius-Killer,” noting:
The concept has a wheelbase of 106.3 inches and is 169.3 inches long. Hyundai says the Blue-Will will get an estimated 50 to 55 mpg in the hybrid-electric mode. It can travel about 38 miles in electric-only mode.
Unfortunately, reality was undaunted by Hyundai’s fearsome combination of specs on paper, a funky concept and a stated goal. Johnson explains that Chevy Volt school of green-car design (marketing, specs and desire for “green car leadership” at all costs first, actual design second) is like, really hard.
A hybrid vehicle usually takes double the time of a standard production car, and a plug-in even more than that. Think about how long GM has been spending on the Chevy Volt. It doesn’t happen overnight, but we’ve got some good partners with LG Chem on the batteries. We have a lot of engineers working quietly behind the scenes. We’re really moving as fast as we can.
Although the date for the Blue Will plug-in hybrid could easily slip into 2013 or later, the implication is that a new Hyundai hybrid-only model could go into production in the next two years.
I hope they don’t bother with such a car. Avoid me-too stuff.
But if they do produce it, I hope it loses that ugly nose and looks more like the Sonata.
I was trying to figure which whale’s mouth that snout looks like. It’s a right whale. I guess they didn’t want to look too derivative and avoided adopting Mercury’s baleen grille look…..
You know, when I drew my caricature of the future of car styling I didn’t expect it to come true in such detail so quickly…
That looks like a basking mouth shark… in search of a harpoon to put it out of its fugly misery.
Keeping the “alternate propulsion” humor in mind, isn’t the term for “soft sell” actually spelled “soft peddle“?
The advent of whale-influenced design keeps me up at night. For the handful of us heritage whalers (row like hell, harpoon like hell, hang on for the ride) and purveyors of artisanal whale-derived products, this could boost our business. Good times ahead!
Sorry – it’s the fish-friendly Shark with the Aussie accent from Finding Nemo: “Hello, my name is Bruce….”
Do Hyundai have any ideas of their own?