Two news items are unnerving Japan today: The ruling DPJ party seems to be heading towards a solid defeat at the upper house elections. And Volkswagen has lost all respect for the Japanese competition. The enemy Volkswagen now fears most is – dou shiyou – (Read More…)

Once again, Hyundai-Kia have netted another positive year-over-year month, with both brands shattering their June sales records and Hyundai setting a new all-time monthly market share record. Hyundai has been year-over-year positive for 18 months straight now. Most importantly of all, in this weak market, is Hyundai’s claim that

The strength of our new product has driven a 45 percent pure retail sales increase while simultaneously allowing us to reduce incentive spending by about the same amount…While our total sales are up 25 percent calendar year-to-date, our fleet sales are down 21 percent

Please believe, every automaker in the US market wishes they could say that right now. Full numbers after the jump.

(Read More…)

Since the start of the World Cup, chief sponsor Hyundai has already miffed the Catholics, and one of its ads accidentally caused British viewers to miss England’s first World Cup goal. So, to get things back on track they’ve apparently decided to sponsor… a giant vuvuzela? “Annoying” and “mildly offensive” were probably not the brand values Hyundai was looking to promote when they decided to sponsor the event. But hey, at least they’re not throwing competitors in jail.

With apologies to Robert Burns, the best laid schemes o’ mice an’ marketers gang aft agley. That’s certainly what’s happened to MINI’s plan to race a Porsche 911. Porsche said “no thanks” to MINI’s challenge, which is exactly what MINI was looking for. Then Hyundai had to come in and force MINI out of its underdog status, making it defend itself against a cheaper competitor. And the search for a meaningful race-as-marketing-stunt continues…

In the midst of a nearly 3,000 word InsideLine treatise on the forthcoming Equus and Hyundai’s upmarket intentions in general, Hyundai’s USA boss John Krafcik reveals that the car pictured above very nearly became the Hyundai Genesis. No, really.

There was a lot of internal debate on design direction for Genesis. We used a European design house as an early consultant, and its proposals informed the core design elements of the first approved exterior model, which got as far as the tooling stage. In our industry, when you’ve built tools to stamp the exterior sheet metal, you’ve committed millions of dollars, and so you’re pretty much committed at that stage to bring that design to market. But in the end, we weren’t happy with the design. So we made the right decision (albeit a difficult and expensive one) to redo the exterior with a cleaner, more athletic and more enduring design, homegrown from our own design studio.

I got one word for you Krafcik: ballsy.

(Read More…)

With Honda and Toyota suddenly taking hydrogen fuel cells seriously, Hyundai-Kia is jumping on the bandwagon. Byung Ki Ahn, general manager of Hyundai-Kia’s Fuel Cell Group tells Autocar

There are already agreements between car makers such as ourselves and legislators in Europe, North America and Japan to build up to the mass production of fuel cell cars by 2015. Hydrogen production capacity and refuelling infrastructure will be improved. Pilot-scale production of 1000 fuel cell cars a year will begin for us in two years. Our first cars won’t be fully commercialised [they will probably be leased , not bought outright] but they will allow us to make the final stages of development progress before we begin commercial production of around 10,000 hydrogen cars a year in 2015

(Read More…)

Many people (especially on this site) worry that Toyota might become the new old GM. I beg to differ. Toyota is a well run company, it turns a profit and builds good cars (not great, but good ones). When GM was swirling around the porcelain throne, people were desperately seeking ideas to recall lost customers back to GM. One thought was the “5 year, bumper-to-bumper warranty.”

The logic was watertight. Stop saying that your cars are as good as the competition (I’m looking at you, Mr Lutz) and put your money where your mouth is. Why should a customer commit tens of thousands to a car, if you can’t commit to a measly 5 years? But GM never did it. We had a powertrain warranty, but not a bumper-to-bumper one. Now compare this to Hyundai, who where, and let’s not mince words here, a joke in the car world. A commitment to quality and a 5 year bumper-to-bumper warranty (in the UK) later and Hyundai is up there with the best of them. So, if it’s good enough for Hyundai…. (Read More…)

Korea? Bzzzzt.

The U.S.A.? Bzzzzt. Not yet and not quite. (Read More…)

So much for seeing a Hyundai-branded Ram anytime soon. The company has clarified in a statement [via Reuters] that:

Hyundai Motor Co. denies that there are any current plans to bring a pickup truck of any type into the U.S. now or in the foreseeable future. Hyundai is not in discussion with Chrysler in regard to a selling a rebadged Chrysler Corp pickup truck, or any other vehicle, in the U.S

Which means that Ram will have to overcome a 20-25 percent sales slump over the last year on its own. And Hyundai will have to stick with cars, where it’s killing the competition anyway. Unless it hooks up with the other former Ram-rebadge-wannabe, Nissan. The Japanese brand is reportedly developing both full-size and compact pickups despite having had minimal success moving pickups in volume… a partnership there might benefit both.

Reuters reports:

Hyundai made a proposal to Chrysler earlier this year under which the U.S. automaker would build a truck for Hyundai based on Chrysler’s Ram truck platform… Chrysler Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne rebuffed Hyundai’s initial approach in February… saying the automaker needs to focus on its established turnaround plans under Fiat SpA. But Hyundai continues to look at truck options and could come back to Chrysler, according to two of those with knowledge of the talks, who were not authorized to discuss the matter because the closed-door discussions were preliminary.

Ram sales were down 23 percent last month, down 20 percent calendar-year-to-date, and down 24.3 percent in rolling 12-month totals. Hyundai is doing just fine without a pickup. Chrysler may have been crazy to turn down a shot at easy volume (that might have gone to Nissan), but Hyundai would be crazier still to ask a second time. After all, Volkswagen’s Chrysler rebadge, the Routan minivan, has sold only 14,580 units in the last 12 months.

Hyundai is riding high. They’re being thought of in the same vein as Honda in terms of quality, the same as Ford in terms of value and the same as Toyota in terms of reliability. So what could be left for Hyundai to do? They want you to think of them as a … (Read More…)

Since GM Chairman/CEO Ed Whitacre began firing holdover executives, starting with former CEO Fritz Henderson, TTAC has argued that VP for Marketing Susan Docherty is a prime example of a GM lifer who “owes her career to GM’s timid and inept culture.” Having already lost the Sales VP position to GM’s rising star Mark Reuss, “leaving Docherty time to focus on the marketing side and polish up her resumé,” we figured she was on her way out. And sure enough, several embarrassments later, the announcement came today. What we didn’t expect: that former Hyundai “Marketer of the year” Joel Ewanick would replace her.

(Read More…)

Hyundai and Kia kept up their winning ways last month, combining for a 24 percent sales increase. Most of the increase comes courtesy of the Hyundai brand, which rose 30 percent on strong sales of the new Tucson and Sonata (up 271 and 57 percent respectively) and Santa Fe (+59 percent). Kia’s volume was largely boosted by its new Sorento SUV, which sold 8,486 units, and a strong rise in Soul sales volume. Forte sold 5,807 units, but didn’t outperform last April’s 7,165 sales of its predecessor, the Spectra. Full numbers after the jump.

(Read More…)

Hyundai continues its “fluidic sculpture” makeover with the debut of the new Elantra (Avante in other markets) at the Busan auto show in Korea. Expect a North American debut sometime next year.

Conventional SUVs are all but dead, yet interest in sedans has not been surging. Instead, car-based SUVs with some promise of respectable fuel economy are currently hot. So a redesigned, four-cylinder-only Hyundai Tucson could not arrive at a better time. But it’s a crowded field. Why buy this one?

(Read More…)