Earlier this week, former Hyundai executive Derrick Hatami appeared to be a corporate sacrificial lamb — slaughtered by the Korean automaker to appease the angry sales gods. His abrupt departure from the company seemed to be an under-the-rug firing. However, his former employer quickly reached to us to explain Hatami had left on his own accord, wishing him well. While that’s often the boilerplate explanation when an executive is forcibly ousted from a large company, Hyundai wasn’t lying.

Hatami appeared, as if by magic, on Volkswagen of America roster less than 48 hours after news of his exodus broke. The current assumption is that his apparent firing from Hyundai was, in fact, a poaching maneuver undertaken by VW. Otherwise, this man has the most incredible interviewing skills on planet Earth.  (Read More…)

Genesis Motors is soon to complete its first year on the U.S. market.

Through the first ten months of its run as Hyundai’s luxury spin-off, 15,254 copies of the Genesis G80 and Genesis G90 have been sold. That’s 15,254 buyers who all moved over from other auto brands. There was no other way — no repeat business, no C-Class to E-Class to S-Class-style chain reaction.

More of those buyers moved over from the Hyundai brand than anywhere else. That makes sense. The Genesis G80 is essentially a second-generation Hyundai Genesis sedan. The Genesis G90 is a second-generation replacement for the Hyundai Equus. Hyundai buyers are trading in and trading up.

But when it comes to earning conquests from luxury rivals, Genesis Motors does so most often at the expense of Genesis’ forerunner, the last brand to do what Genesis wants to do. (Read More…)

This is not what you’d call a long history of sales difficulties for Hyundai, the seventh-best-selling auto brand in America. The 2016 calendar year was Hyundai Motor America’s best ever, the culmination of eight consecutive years of growth.

Yet while Hyundai rapidly — and not unpredictably — grew its U.S. sales coming out of the recession, nearly doubling its sales between 2008 and 2016, the rate of growth was notably slower in 2016 than in prior years. Blame capacity constraints, blame a car-centric lineup in an SUV-leaning world, blame conservative redesigns, blame whatever you want.

Regardless, Hyundai is feeling the pinch now. Year-over-year, sales have declined in each of the last six months. Hyundai’s U.S. CEO, Dave Zuchowski, was ousted just before Christmas 2016. In May 2017, for the first time ever, Kia outsold Hyundai in the United States. And on June 6, 2017, Hyundai Motor America’s vice president for sales, Derrick Hatami, exited the building as well.

All is not well. So then, more SUVs? (Read More…)

Updated at 10:00pm on June 6 with response from Hyundai.

Derrick Hatami, Hyundai Motor America’s vice president of sales for less than two years, has been removed from Hyundai’s leadership team as of today, June 6, 2017.

After record annual volume in the 2016 calendar year, Hyundai’s U.S. sales have been falling fast throughout 2017. Year-over-year, Hyundai volume declined in each of the last six months, including an 18-percent decline in May 2017.

That decline enabled partner brand Kia to outsell Hyundai for the first time in the brands’ U.S. history, evidently a source of embarrassment for Hyundai. Having already forced out the company’s U.S. CEO, Dave Zuchowski, just before Christmas last year after Hyundai’s rapid growth stalled, Derrick Hatami’s departure leaves a hole that will be filled in the interim by Hyundai’s southern regional general manager, Sam Brnovich, according to Automotive News.

Last week, Hyundai wasn’t short on excuses for the company’s poor May performance. This week, the excuses were apparently not good enough. (Read More…)

With the Civic Type R expected to appear on lots any day now, and no end in sight to the continued popularity of the Ford Focus RS and Volkswagen Golf R, consumers can be forgiven for not thinking about the Hyundai Veloster.

The long-in-the-tooth model remains a valuable oddball for the automaker, but it isn’t without its flaws — namely, a super-harsh ride. Still, it’s a quirky model that adds flair in an increasingly conformist marketplace. Hyundai even saw fit to endow the Veloster with a turbocharged 1.6-liter four-cylinder in a bid to perk up its little hatch.

Despite falling sales, Hyundai isn’t giving up on the model, and a new report claims the Korean automaker could give the next-generation Veloster a heaping dose of competitiveness in the hot hatch segment. (Read More…)

May 2017 was not a particularly healthy sales month for either of South Korea’s two major automakers in the United States. Including Hyundai’s Genesis spinoff brand, the Hyundai-Kia Automotive Group declined 12 percent, year-over-year — a loss of more than 15,000 sales for the trio of Korean brands compared with May 2016.

Korea’s U.S. auto market share thus fell to 7.8 percent in May 2017, a drop of a full percentage point. In a market that’s seen sales fall 2 percent overall through the first five months of 2017, total Hyundai-Kia Automotive Group sales are down 7 percent following record annual volume in 2016.

Hyundai and Kia both underperformed the market in May, just as they’re both underperforming the market through the first five months of 2017. But by an altogether different standard, one member of the group will be pleased with May’s U.S. sales results.

In May 2017, for the first time in the brands’ U.S. sales history, Kia sold more new vehicles than Hyundai. Kia outsold Hyundai. Yes, it was the first time. But it surely won’t be the last. (Read More…)

Amid stagnating U.S. sales, a crash-dive in China, and a product lineup not optimally suited for growth, Hyundai is furiously crafting a salvation plan.

In North America and other utility-loving countries, the strategy is clear: more crossovers and a significant product shakeup. The little Kona is already on the way, though perhaps not as quickly as Hyundai had hoped.

China, however, presents a serious problem for the automaker. What was supposed to be a growth market for the company has now turned into the opposite. Hyundai’s share of the market has shrunk to 5 percent from last year’s 8.1 percent, which was down from years past. In March alone, after news of South Korea’s installation of a U.S.-supplied anti-missile defense system, Hyundai and Kia sales dropped 52 percent.

Determined to make the Chinese fall back into love, the automaker has a plan brewing. (Read More…)

It’s that time of the month where I, your humble author, examine the questions that you are asking us via search-engine queries and then attempt to answer those questions to the best of my ability.

Over the past 90 days, 14 of you have searched for tuscani car. You’ve almost certainly seen a Hyundai Tiburon with the domestic-market “T” badge glued on in place of the normal Hyundai oval. A lot of Tiburon people like to do that. Did you know there’s a whole “KDM” movement out there where people try to make their Korean cars look even more Korean? Now you do.

It’s also possible you’re researching the purchase of a loaded “Tuscani Edition” Tiburon. This was a short-lived attempt to capitalize on KDM-focused buyers. To learn more, click on this ancient TTAC review.

So with that burning question answered, we can get to the (not-so-) funny stuff.

(Read More…)

Hyundai, which found itself lagging behind its rivals in the lucrative crossover and SUV market and figured it should do something about it, is having trouble getting its desperately needed subcompact crossover into production.

The 2018 Kona, which we’ve so far seen only a portion of, is part of a better-late-than-never product push by the Korean automaker. A new small crossover was needed to to mine a growing segment and boost Hyundai’s flagging U.S. sales, but the reality of building cars in Korea has thrown up a roadblock. (Read More…)

The timeliness of a recall of Hyundai and Kia vehicles equipped with Theta II four-cylinder engines is the focus of a formal National Highway Traffic Safety Administration investigation revealed today.

Metal engine debris resulting from a faulty production process is behind the expansive recall of nearly 1.7 million vehicles, but the NHTSA wants to know if the recall expanded too slowly. Just how much Hyundai knew about the widespread issue is a big question mark, made all the more pressing by the testimony of a company whistleblower. (Read More…)

He lost his job for it, but Kim Gwang-ho, a 25-year Hyundai veteran at the automaker’s Seoul, South Korea facility, knew he needed to speak out.

The engineer blew the whistle on his employer, reporting the automaker to both South Korean and American officials after uncovering evidence Hyundai was covering up a defect in several of its models. Kim even published internal documents to back up his claim.

Kim, 55, was fired from his job, but authorities took note. As a result, a further 240,000 vehicles — totaling 12 models — have been added to a recall already 1.4 million strong. (Read More…)

Hyundai has teased its entry into the subcompact crossover segment in the past but only acknowledged that it would have at least one thin LED headlamp, be called the Kona, and finally serve round out the company’s SUV lineup. On Friday, the company released another teaser to give us a better sense of what the little crossover will actually look like.

For starters, the thin LED strips are now running lamps positioned above the vehicle’s actual headlights, à la Nissan Juke. However, Hyundai appears to have accomplished it in a much more understated manner than Nissan. Unlike the Juke, the Kona has its light strips running just below the hood opening and very near the actual illumination sources. It’s a lot less funky, but should be interesting enough to set it apart from the rest of the segment — an important consideration, as there’s much more stylistic variation between subcompact crossovers than between their compact equivalents.  (Read More…)

This is not the 2017 Hyundai Elantra GT3 Superleggera Stradale Competizione with an optional N Performance Package.

The 2017 Hyundai Elantra Sport is not hardcore. It’s not SCCA-certified. It’s not extreme. It’s not uncompromising. And thankfully, it’s not obnoxious, ostentatious, outlandish, or overcooked.

The 2017 Hyundai Elantra Sport is not a Ford Focus RS alternative; it’s not a replacement for your Subaru WRX STI; it won’t satisfy your Renault Sport 230 Renault F1 Team R26.R import cravings.

The $21,650 2017 Hyundai Elantra Sport is, instead, a remarkably balanced junior sports sedan with classy styling and a terrific value quotient, priced $5,100 below the top-spec Elantra Limited.

It’s the best version of Hyundai’s best product. (Read More…)

The frustration never seems to end for Hyundai executives. After last year’s Korean labor strife and political scandal, the brand now faces flagging fortunes in the all-important North American market, all thanks to a car-heavy lineup that once guaranteed piles of profit.

Now, the automaker faces the same problem in another global growth engine — China. While that market has also discovered its love for crossovers and SUVs, there’s another problem that Hyundai can’t turn around by rushing a new vehicle to production. Hyundai, it seems, can’t do a damn thing about high-altitude defensive missiles. (Read More…)

The cyber security firm Rapid7 recently recently informed the Hyundai Motor Company that its Blue Link smartphone application might be exposing its customers to an unsavory element — serving up another reminder that convenience frequently comes at a cost.

Software vulnerabilities in the app allowed Blue Link-equipped vehicles to be unlocked and even started remotely, making them susceptible to theft from high-tech criminals for a period of three months until the company finally fixed the bug in March. Hyundai says that is is unaware of any mishaps stemming from the issue. (Read More…)