2019 Hyundai Tucson Sel on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Hyundai will add Ioniq EVs to WaiveCar car-sharing fleet

Hyundai Motor America will add its Ioniq electric vehicles to a Southern California-based car-sharing fleet that launched earlier this year with Chevrolet Spark EVs. Hyundai reached an agreement with Santa Ana, Calif.-based WaiveCar in which Hyundai will provide 150 Ioniq EVs to the fleet by the time sales begin for the model early next year. Hyundai may add an additional 250 Ioniq EVs to WaiveCar fleets in other cities. WaiveCar is an app-based car-sharing service that debuted in Los Angeles in early 2016. The company offers drivers the cars for free for the first two hours, then charges $6 an hour for more time. WaiveCar also generates revenue via external advertising wraps around the vehicles, and also features geo-located targeted ads. Take a look at Hyundai's press release about the WaiveCar agreement here. Curiously, and somewhat admirably, Hyundai earlier this week went on record as saying the Ioniq's 124-mile single-charge range won't be sufficient in the long haul. The South Korean automaker has vowed to replace the upcoming version with an Ioniq EV for 2018 that will be able to go at least 200 miles on a full charge. That's not a bad move, considering General Motors is preparing to launch its Chevrolet Bolt EV, while Tesla is working on its Model 3. Both of those models will have 200-mile-plus full-charge ranges. Hyundai announced the incoming sales of the Ioniq EV earlier this year. A hybrid version of the Ioniq also debuted in South Korea earlier this year. Overall, Hyundai is looking to debut more than two-dozen hybrids, plug-ins, and fuel-cell vehicles to the world by the end of the decade. Related Video:

Volkswagen Group, BMW Z4 top Total Value Awards by Strategic Vision

It was just nine months ago that Strategic Vision announced its 2011 Total Value Awards, but you don't have to wait until next year for the 2012 awards. The Volkswagen Group keeps its lead as the number one brand, with seven products taking top category spots: Golf, Jetta Wagon, CC, Eos and Audi A3 Wagon, Q5 and Q7. Strategic Vision says "true innovation" - "rich and impactful, intuitive, motivational, in-depth and is able to trigger description by the user in great specificity" - is the open secret of the brands with the strongest showings. Results are culled from 77,153 owners covering more than 350 new cars bought between September of 2011 and 2012 ranked in the Total Value Index (TVI).
Other notable winners are Hyundai-Kia following VW in the brand category and having the Hyundai Elantra and Kia Sorento among category winners, the BMW Z4 taking the premium roadster category and the highest overall score of any vehicle, the Chevrolet Volt continuing to gather silverware in the Special Category, nabbing the second-highest score of all and representative of "nearly perfect innovation," and Chrysler and Dodge being most improved.
Check out the press release below for your day's dose of jargon and all the winners.

Goes Both Ways: Free-trade pact sees South Korean brands losing share at home

France has been vocal, but not alone, in noting the rise of the South Korean automakers in Europe. The signing of a free-trade pact in 2011 between South Korea and the EU, along with the especially value-conscious buyers in a crisis-stricken Europe, has seen market share increases measuring in the double digits for Hyundai and Kia - analysts expect 14-percent growth for the two in 2012.
A report in Bloomberg has found that there's pain at the other end, too: The pact more than halved import tariffs on European cars headed to South Korea to 3.2 percent, and prices are now close enough to domestic offerings for more South Koreans to pay the premium for foreign luxury nameplates and the cachet they confer. Products sold by the five domestic automakers hogged 92 percent of the market last year, and sales have dropped 5.2 percent this year whereas import sales have risen by 24 percent. This will mark the first year that imports claimed ten percent of the market; compare that to 2002, when domestic market share in the world's 11th largest auto market was 99 percent.
The Germans are at the head of the arrow, counting for 65 percent of imported car sales, but every foreign maker has seen double-digit gains. Analysts think foreign makes could ultimately grab 15 percent of the market.