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Hyundai plans $388 million expansion at engine plant in Alabama

Hyundai says it is investing $388 million to build a new plant in Alabama to manufacturing engine heads and update technology in an existing engine plant to support production of new Sonata and Elantra sedans and the Santa Fe crossover. The investment will also include 50 new jobs at its manufacturing complex in Montgomery. About $40 million will go toward constructing a new 260,000-square-foot engine-head machining plant, which is expected to be completed in November and operational by mid-2019. Hyundai says the project will free up space to expand engine assembly lines in two existing engine plants in Alabama. Hyundai plans to begin producing the Theta III engine, likely a 2.5-liter four-cylinder (though Hyundai won't confirm the specs yet), in April 2019 for the Sonata and Santa Fe crossover. It will continue to build the 2.0-liter Nu engine for the Elantra at its plant in Montgomery. Together, the engine plants build about 700,000 engineers per year to support vehicle production in Alabama and Kia's manufacturing facility in West Point, Ga. Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Alabama started vehicle production in May 2005 and employs 2,700 full-time and 500 part-time employees. Related Video: Image Credit: Hyundai Plants/Manufacturing Hyundai Crossover Sedan hyundai santa fe

2019 Hyundai Veloster shows off its colorful new face

The next-gen Hyundai Veloster is coming soon. When I was in Korea for the launch of the new Hyundai Kona, all three variants — standard, Turbo and N — were trotting around the automaker's proving grounds, teasing and laughing at us since we weren't allowed to use our cameras. After some sleuthing, we uncovered some new info. Thanks to the automotive media back in Korea, we have what appears to be official images of the new Veloster Turbo done up in some of the best-looking camouflage we've seen in a long while. The car will make its full debut at the Detroit Auto Show in January. It seems the car was shown off to the Korean press at Inje Speedway in Gangwon Province. The car retains the same basic three-door layout of the old model. That means two doors on the passenger side and one for the driver. The shape may be generally the same, but the car looks far cleaner than before. It's as if Hyundai's designers smoothed out all the lines and pulled the bodywork tighter to the frame. Like before, the exhaust appears to exit from the center, though the N model I saw in Korea and in spy photos has a more traditional dual-exit exhaust pipe. Floating red-painted calipers appear to clamp on some pretty large rotors. There appear to be two wheel designs, too. There aren't any photos of the interior, but once again our spy photographers have come through. The press release we found also lists a new heads-up display. Since these photos came from Korea, we contacted representatives at Hyundai here in the U.S. for more info, but weren't given any clear answers. All we were told was that the images came from their counterparts in Korea. Expect the Veloster Turbo to share the 201-horsepower turbocharged 1.6-liter inline-four and transmissions from the Elantra GT Sport. Korea apparently gets a 1.4-liter engine, but it's unclear if that's coming here. We hope the hopped-up Veloster N will get the 271-horsepower turbocharged inline-four from the i30 N. Hyundai has been on a killer roll as of late. We can't wait to drive this. Related Video:

Google's new Android Autos OS unveiled, will be in cars this year [w/video]

Connected cars are coming en-masse. We know this much. How, though, remains something of an open question, especially as two of the world's largest tech companies are preparing to battle for control of your car's dashboard. On the one hand, we have Apple and its CarPlay system. And now, we know what Google has been working on with Auto Link.
Its new name is Android Auto, and yes, it's based off the Android architecture that is the primary challenger to Apple's iOS mobile operating system. Announced at Google's I/O conference today, Android Auto functions similarly to CarPlay - owners will need to plug their smartphones into their cars to access the full breadth of capability.
In Android Auto's case, that means a wealth of voice controls to limit distracted driving. Google's marquee apps will be available when the interface arrives in production models later this year, including Google Play Music, Google Maps and voice-activated texting and text playback. Meanwhile, developers will be able to begin designing custom apps for the new system via an upcoming software development kit.