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Hyundai crashes two Sonatas in public to prove a point about safety

According to The Korean Car Blog, Hyundai has a quality perception gap in the minds of its domestic customers, but it's not with another brand: some South Koreans think US-market Hyundai products are safer than those sold in South Korea. For example, home-market consumers think the US gets more advanced airbag systems than they do. Hyundai decided that the best way to combat that idea was to ram two 2015 Sonata 2.0 Turbos into one another, each one traveling at 34 miles per hour, in front of a live audience. From what we can glean from a Google-translated version of the backstory, the company had a local university professor secure two vehicles, a Lakeside Blue model from South Korea and a Venetian Red model manufactured in the company's US plant and flown over. It invited buyers of the 30th Anniversary Sonata and members of the local media to a drive-in movie premiere on August 22, the show actually being the crash test. In addition to the two Sonatas that would autonomously throw themselves at one another, the company had a Tucson Fuel Cell use its hydrogen fuel cell stack to make popcorn and 119 various emergency vehicles emergency services on standby in case anything went wrong. When guests were asked which car they thought would fare better, 74 percent of the crowd said the US-spec car. In interviews conducted on the street, 81 percent of respondents said they believe the US car is safer. The video above is in Korean, but car crashes are a universal language. Check it out to see which car comes out better.

2015 Hyundai Genesis appears uncovered [UPDATE]

Hyundai gave us a tease of its second-gen Genesis sedan courtesy of the HCD-14 Genesis Concept displayed at this year's Detroit Auto Show, and while we've seen numerous spy shots of the car testing since (both on and off the track), all were heavily camouflaged. That all changed today when the South Korean site bobaedream.co.kr posted an image of the new luxury sedan sitting out completely uncovered (click the image to enlarge).
While we can't see much more than the face of the new Genesis sedan, it does appear to be a striking improvement over the current car that debuted back in 2008. The jutting, upright grille is very similar in appearance to the HCD-14 Concept, while the headlights and fascia look like a combination of Mercedes S-Class and E-Class. The body creasing isn't as dramatic as the concept, but the roofline and glasshouse look to be almost identical to the show car. Based on how finished the car looks in this picture, our guess is that we could see Hyundai's new Genesis at an upcoming auto show like LA or Detroit.
UPDATE: Per the request of the individual pictured next to the Hyundai Genesis in the original photo that spurred this story, we have removed said image from the post. You can still see the new Genesis here at the source, for the moment.

Hyundai developing safety system calibrated for 'secondary impacts'

There is an inherent flaw with how traditional airbags are used and deployed: They can only reply to one impact. The Hyundai Motor Group wants to address this with a new "multi-collision airbag system" that focuses on impacts that occur after the first point of contact. Hyundai defines multi-collision accidents as "those in which the primary impact is followed by collisions with secondary objects, such as trees, electrical posts or other vehicles." In a press release, Hyundai noted that about 30 percent of roughly 56,000 accidents between 2000 and 2012 in North America involved these types of multi-collisions, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)'s National Automotive Sampling System Crashworthiness Data System division. The airbag systems in today's cars don't always go off when the first accident occurs, and when a car goes through a secondary impact, the airbags may no longer provide the best safety. Hyundai's new system can read the positions of the car's occupants and react in a more beneficial way. It can quickly recalibrate after the first impact based on readings from the vehicle and the people inside, which allows the second part of the crash to trigger the airbags. As of now the system is still in development, but Hyundai Motor Group is planning to use it in both Kia and Hyundai vehicles in the future. Which models and which markets it will apply to first are yet to be determined. Related Video: