2013 Hyundai Gls on 2040-cars

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IIHS Top Safety Pick and Top Safety Pick+ awards get tougher: Here are the latest winners

Automakers love to trumpet the accolades from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, but the agency keeps making its best grades harder to achieve. For 2020, it is raising the bar again, requiring a better score in the passenger-side small-overlap crash test, wider availability of top-performing headlights, and automatic emergency braking systems that effectively avoid collisions with pedestrians, in addition to its previous benchmarks. Why the 2020 criteria is harder: To be named either a Top Safety Pick or Top Safety Pick+, the required performance in the passenger-side small-overlap crash test has been raised from Acceptable to Good, meaning that the model must achieve Good ratings in all crash tests. The Nissan Rogue, for example, scored an Acceptable in the passenger-side small overlap crash, and so it loses its Top Safety Pick rating for 2020. To achieve either of the top ratings, a vehicle's automatic emergency braking system must effectively avoid hitting pedestrians as well as other vehicles. (The automatic emergency braking system can be optional, but then the award applies to the model only when so equipped.) Any vehicle whose automatic emergency braking system does not include pedestrian detection would lose its TSP or TSP+ rating for 2020, the Ram 1500 being one example. To be named a Top Safety Pick+, the model can have no variant with headlights that achieve less than an Acceptable rating (most new cars have different headlights — often LEDs — that are exclusive to upper trim levels).

2018 Hyundai Elantra GT starts at just over $20,000

The soon-to-be-released 2018 Hyundai Elantra GT hatchback finally has pricing, and it is quite competitive. It starts at $20,235 for the base model with a manual transmission, with the automatic adding an extra $1,000. That puts the base, manual Elantra GT at a few hundred dollars less than the Honda Civic hatchback and Ford Focus hatchback, and a couple thousand less than the Chevrolet Cruze hatchback. The base, manual Elantra GT also comes nicely equipped even in the base model. It features 17-inch alloy wheels, keyless entry, heated side mirrors, a rearview camera, cross-traffic alert, and an 8-inch touchscreen infotainment system with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Under the hood is a naturally aspirated 2.0-liter four-cylinder making 161 horsepower, and it can be coupled to the standard six-speed manual or a six-speed automatic. View 52 Photos The 2018 Elantra GT Sport starts at $23,250 with the six-speed manual, while an extra $900 nets a seven-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission. The extra cost brings significantly more performance and features. Under its hood is the familiar turbocharged 1.6-liter four-cylinder good for 201 hp and 195 pound-feet of torque we already enjoyed in the Forte5 SX and Elantra Sport sedan, but for significantly less than the manual Forte5 SX we drove. The GT Sport also swaps the standard GT's torsion bar rear suspension for a coil-spring multi-link setup for improved handling. Braking improves, too, with larger discs behind 18-inch alloy wheels. Inside, the GT Sport gets leather upholstery, heated sport seats, dual-zone automatic climate control, blind-spot detection, and a proximity key with push-button start. The Elantra GT has a number of comfort and safety features available as options, though most of the latter are only available on the Sport. Lane-change assist, panoramic sunroof, and a seven-speaker sound system with subwoofer are available on both standard Elantra GT and GT Sport. Lane-keep assist, forward collision with automatic emergency braking, and adaptive cruise control that can stop the car completely and restart. Hyundai previously announced that Elantra GTs would arrive at dealers this summer, so they should be on lots soon. Related Video: Featured Gallery 2018 Hyundai Elantra GT Hyundai Hatchback Economy Cars hyundai elantra gt hyundai i30

Hyundai considering pickup after good reaction to Santa Cruz

The Hyundai HCD-15 Santa Cruz pickup concept was one of the stars of the 2015 Detroit Auto Show and even earned fifth place on Autoblog's Editors' Choice list of favorite debuts. The strong response might have been enough to get it made. Hyundai research and development director Park Byung-cheol said that the company was considering building the truck, according to Reuters. He warned, though, that there were still some obstacles in the way of the pickup arriving to showrooms without saying what those were. Rumors about Hyundai considering a pickup in the US go back several years but were fruitless. The Santa Cruz's unveiling really reignited things, though. The North American arm of the Korean brand reportedly chose Detroit for the debut so that foreign executives could see the media reaction to the concept. That gamble might have paid off. Hyundai's pickup at dealers might not look like the Santa Cruz concept, though. The company said the version in Detroit had nothing production-ready about it and even lacked an interior. At the time, a platform still hadn't been decided on, and the brand had several internal design studies underway. Related Video: