When Kia started selling the ’94 Sephia in America, nobody was worried. Not the American car companies still adjusting to the market share lost to the Japanese competition, and not the Japanese who used cheap and reliable cars to take the market share in the first place. The laissez-faire attitude to the Korean upstart was understandable, the Sephia was a truly horrible car. In 1997 Kia filed for bankruptcy protection and the big boys patted themselves on their back for not worrying about the Asian upstart. When another unremarkable Korean company purchased 51% of Kia, nobody cared. They should have.

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For all of Hyundai’s successes in Europe, it is conspicuously absent in perhaps the lone major growth segment on the continent; small crossovers. We’re not talking “small” in the sense of the Hyundai Tucson either. Think more along the lines of the Opel Mokka (our Buick Encore), the Ford EcoSport and the Dacia Duster. Even premium brands are getting into the fold, with the BMW X1, Audi Q3 and the upcoming Mercedes-Benz GLA vying for market share.

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TTAC commentator bumpy ii writes:

I have a 2007 Hyundai Accent 5-speed manual hatch. When I’m driving, sometimes I’ll hear a little ‘psssht’ noise as I pass through 2500 rpm. It almost sounds like a tiny blowoff valve under the car. (Read More…)

As one of the big dissenters from the battery-powered EV lovetrain, Hyundai is about to put its money on Hydrogen Fuel Cell technology. Starting in 2015, it intends to assemble up to 10,000 units of a fuel cell-powered version of the Tucson crossover at its plant in Ulsan, South Korea.

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As enthusiastic as I am about the actual product (when everyone was ready to crap all over Tesla based on some bad information, TTAC was one of the few publications to go to bat for the upstart auto maker), Elon Musk’s series of announcements, frequently couched in hyperbolic descriptions of their significance, are beginning to grate on me. Every week, Musk seems to descend from Mount Sinai bearing yet another set of tablets that promise to “disrupt” (to use a favorite term of Silicon Valley) the automotive landscape forever, yet end up being little more than a not-quite-a-lease program or some announcement about after-sales care.

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Hyundai’s top man shot down rumors of his company building a new factory in the U.S.  “We have no plan for a new U.S. factory for now,” Hyundai’s Chairman Chung Mong-koo told Reuters at Seoul’s Gimpo airport before leaving for the United States.

Rumors started flying when South Korea’s Financial News said that Kia is talking to Georgia state officials about constructing a new plant. These rumors were denied. Last week, Chung rekindled the flames by saying that Hyundai “will look into whether there are opportunities” to expand production overseas.

Chung is expected to visit Hyundai and Kia’s U.S. plants in Alabama and Georgia during his visit, which coincides with South Korean President Park Geun-hye’s U.S. trip.

Hyundai chickened out and took down a clever ad that promotes the zero carbon emissions of its ix35 in a very convincing way: The ad shows a man who tries to commit suicide using a hose attached to the exhaust. The man fails and lives. Instead, the ad was killed. (Read More…)

Yesterday, South Korea’s Financial News said Kia is talking to Georgia state officials about constructing a new plant, called “KMMG 2” with an annual output of 150,000 units. This in addition to the plant Kia already has in West Point, GA. Reuters asked around, and received nothing but denials. (Read More…)

A Reuters article on Hyundai’s recent quality problems raises an interesting question. Has the company grown too fast following an unprecedented image makeover?

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The end of Q1 2013 in the United States saw numerous competitors in the mid-size sedan segment duking it out for the Number 1 spot. North of the border, the situation followed a familiar pattern as well; the race for the sales crown was dominated by compact sedans, rather than mid-sizers.

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Recent talk of Chevrolet attempting to convert the 2014 Impala from 75 percent fleet sales to 70 percent retail sales seemed like an improbable figure. Judging the success of any new car is a crapshoot for most of us, but one thing is for sure; the full-size sedan segment as a whole, is declining.

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I can’t say I ever envisioned myself getting excited about reviewing a three-row crossover, but Hyundai’s latest tall wagon holds a special place in my heart. From 2007-2011, a Hyundai Santa Fe Limited was my main mode of transportation, and despite all miles it racked up on road trips, beer runs and even a couple of extralegal time trials on gravel roads (sorry, Mum and Dad), nobody bothered to take a single picture of it for me to include in this review. I guess it really was that boring.

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Hyundai and Buick are feeling the heat in China, and the industry might rethink past practices of freewheeling Twitter snark. Hyundai and a Buick dealer made remarks about the quality of their products after a 2-month-old baby was abducted along with the RAV4 it was in. Chinese commenters did not like it at all. (Read More…)

Is Hyundai eyeing PSA’s compressed-air hybrid system? If you believe the scuttlebutt out of France, the answer is yes.

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Today, we’re going to talk rebadges.  I know what you’re thinking: a TTAC post about rebadges.  Here comes an assault on General Motors.  You can almost hear the GM PR department groaning, except for the recently departed Joel Ewanick, who doesn’t have time to groan because he’s too busy putting out a garage fire.  But I’m going to leave GM out of this.  Mostly.  Instead, I’m going to focus on some of the more obscure rebadges from the last few decades.  They were all badly conceived.  Most were poorly executed.  And none of them should’ve happened.

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