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Hyundai Veloster nixed in UK after just 3 years

The Veloster, Hyundai's funky, four-door hatchback, has been pulled from the British market after just three years on sale. The blame, as is usually the case in these circumstances, is being placed on slow sales. Auto Express reports that, much like it has in the United States, the Veloster has failed to resonate with both customers and critics. While UK sales figures weren't available to prove AE's point, Veloster sales in the US through November are down nearly 2,000 units over the same period in 2013, to under 26,000 vehicles. That makes it the third-slowest seller in the Hyundai lineup, behind the far more expensive Azera and Equus sedans. The performance-minded Veloster Turbo will be replaced in the UK by a version of the i30 equipped with the VT's 1.6-liter, force-induced, direct-injected engine. You can read all about that new vehicle right here.

Aurora's Chris Urmson on autonomy — that's one way to avoid speeding tickets

Although this year's CES was full of companies announcing and exhibiting their real and conceivable self-driving car technologies, while actual self-driving cars from Aptiv-Lyft were giving conventioneers 400 rides around town, the biggest news came when Volkswagen Group — and recognize this is the entire group, not just the brand — and Hyundai announced that they'd both partnered with Aurora Innovation. While the VW announcement was vague — "The collaboration brings the two companies together to realize self-driving electric vehicles in cities as Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) fleets" — Hyundai provided a concrete goal: "a strategic partnership to bring self-driving Hyundai vehicles to market by 2021." You may not have heard of Aurora, which has been described in some news accounts as "mysterious." But Aurora Innovation has been in business since December 2016, and it is to autonomous technology what the 1927 Yankees are to baseball. The three leaders of the company are Chris Urmson, co-founder and CEO, who had previously been chief technology officer for Alphabet Self-Driving Cars; Sterling Anderson, co-founder and chief product officer, who had directed the development of Tesla Autopilot; and Drew Bagnell, co-founder and chief technical officer, who had been autonomy architect and perception lead at the Uber Advanced Technology Center. We had the chance to sit down with Chris Urmson after he appeared onstage at a Hyundai press conference. He shared his insights on Aurora's approach to automated driving. Initial deployment of self-driving cars? "We think the first place this technology comes to market in in the transportation services or ride-hailing applications, but that's for our partners to decide." (Ride-sharing is a strategy a lot of players in the field are shooting for, as round-the-clock use is one way for paying for what will initially be a technology too costly for private ownership.) Transporting goods or people? "I personally — and as a company — am more excited initially about moving people around. Urban mobility. That's where you see the largest social impact. And it provides better access to mobility for people." Can you create a car that doesn't crash? "It is a fundamentally hard problem because other operators on the road can behave erratically at any moment. For example, if you are in a two-lane, opposing-traffic road, if you want to be safe, you don't drive there, ever.

Hyundai partners with tech startup Smartcar to expand mobility apps

A new technology partnership between Hyundai and a Silicon Valley startup will expand the automaker's connected-car service offerings on its 2018 model-year vehicles, making it possible for owners to do everything from getting their car washed and detailed to fueling up, all without having to actually be there for it. Hyundai announced the partnership with technology startup Smartcar (not to be confused with the automaker) at the L.A. Auto Show to launch its Blue Link All-Access program. The platform aims to give Hyundai owners access to a broad array of new third-party connected-car applications, similar to how users download apps for mobile devices, by giving Smartcar access to its API. That means the automaker can offer new services more quickly, since it won't have to do a separate new integration for every new connected-car service, said Manish Mehrotra, Hyundai Motor America's director of digital business planning and connected operations. "We will develop Blue Link not as standalone system, but as an open platform that can seamlessly integrate the best ideas from inside and outside the company," Mehrotra said. App developers will work with Smartcar, based in Mountain View, Calif., as the single point of integration. Hyundai's Blue Link platform already had allowed owners to do things like sync addresses from their phones to their in-vehicle navigation systems via voice command, start and warm up the car remotely, and locate the vehicle when the driver forgets where he parked it. The new service will be offered on every 2018 model-year Hyundai free of charge for the first three years of ownership. Hyundai also announced a new pilot program in Southern California with an Orange County startup called Washos, which offers mobile car washing and detailing. Other time-saving existing or future applications include being able to get your dry cleaning or groceries delivered to your car while at work. Because the future is going to be BUSY. As further evidence of what he called "our deepening relationships with the technology community," Mehrotra also discussed the recent launch of Cradle, Hyundai's new venture-capital arm.