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Hyundai, Kia ratchet up fleet sales as retail transactions slide

Automotive News reports both Hyundai and Kia have stepped up fleet sales in an attempt to offset disappointing first quarter results. The Korean automakers saw their sales decline by nine percent compared to last year, while all major competitors managed to increase their sales. That situation marks an inversion of two years ago, when both gained ground after Japanese rivals suffered production and inventory shortages after the country's earthquake and tsunami tragedies.
Now, Hyundai can't come up with enough volume models in popular trim configurations to satisfy buyers, and lower-volume models are also in a snag. At the moment, Hyundai can only build 20-30 percent of Veloster hatchbacks with turbocharged engines while the US market would apparently support closer to 70 percent.
In order to reverse the sales slide, Hyundai and Kia have stepped up fleet sales of the vehicles they do have by some 50 percent, ringing up a total of 42,400 units in the first quarter. By contrast, Automotive News reports the seven largest automakers increased retail volume by seven percent and fleet sales by four percent as a group.

Hyundai and Kia set aside $412 million for false mileage claims

We still don't know how the whole fuel economy ratings debacle is going to play out for Hyundai and Kia, but both automakers are preparing to make good on their promises to reimburse vehicle owners for lower-than-promised mileage figures. According to Automotive News, Hyundai and Kia have set aside a combined total of $412 million ($225 million for Hyundai and $187 million for Kia) as compensation, which will be sent out on a case-by-case basis via debit cards depending on the vehicle and the mileage driven.
Announced back in November, the exaggerated miles per gallon claims affect around 900,000 Kia and Hyundai products produced for the 2011 through 2013 model years sold in the US and Canada. This whole deal has had plenty of action ranging from suspected whistleblowing from a rival US automaker and even insider trading, but it has probably been most frustrating for vehicle owners who, in most cases, saw their vehicles' city and highway ratings drop between one and three digits.

Chrysler and Hyundai join Pepsi and Coke as top Super Bowl spenders [w/ video]

Super Bowl XLVIII is barely a week away, and some of the early ads are already leaking out. It's timely then that The Street has released rankings of the top five Super Bowl advertisers since 2009, showing Chrysler and Hyundai/Kia taking two of the spots with $131.7 million in cumulative spending.
Since 2010, the cost to air a 30-second Super Bowl ad has risen from $3 million in 2009 to about $4 million in 2014, and about a fifth of advertisers opt for a one-minute ad, which doubles costs. Last year, the ads brought in $292 million, and they have brought in roughly $2 billion since 2010.
Chrysler has spent $64.3 million since 2009 to make it the fourth highest spending company in the last five years. In that time, the company has rebranded itself as it emerged from bankruptcy with the Imported from Detroit ad campaign that premiered in 2011 and last year's God Made a Farmer Ram Trucks ad. Its 2012 Halftime in America sparked national debate about whether it was also a reference to the upcoming presidential election.