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2016: The year of the autonomous-car promise

About half of the news we covered this year related in some way to The Great Autonomous Future, or at least it seemed that way. If you listen to automakers, by 2020 everyone will be driving (riding?) around in self-driving cars. But what will they look like, how will we make the transition from driven to driverless, and how will laws and infrastructure adapt? We got very few answers to those questions, and instead were handed big promises, vague timelines, and a dose of misdirection by automakers. There has been a lot of talk, but we still don't know that much about these proposed vehicles, which are at least three years off. That's half a development cycle in this industry. We generally only start to get an idea of what a company will build about two years before it goes on sale. So instead of concrete information about autonomous cars, 2016 has brought us a lot of promises, many in the form of concept cars. They have popped up from just about every automaker accompanied by the CEO's pledge to deliver a Level 4 autonomous, all-electric model (usually a crossover) in a few years. It's very easy to say that a static design study sitting on a stage will be able to drive itself while projecting a movie on the windshield, but it's another thing entirely to make good on that promise. With a few exceptions, 2016 has been stuck in the promising stage. It's a strange thing, really; automakers are famous for responding with "we don't discuss future product" whenever we ask about models or variants known to be in the pipeline, yet when it comes to self-driving electric wondermobiles, companies have been falling all over themselves to let us know that theirs is coming soon, it'll be oh so great, and, hey, that makes them a mobility company now, not just an automaker. A lot of this is posturing and marketing, showing the public, shareholders, and the rest of the industry that "we're making one, too, we swear!" It has set off a domino effect – once a few companies make the guarantee, the rest feel forced to throw out a grandiose yet vague plan for an unknown future. And indeed there are usually scant details to go along with such announcements – an imprecise mileage estimate here, or a far-off, percentage-based goal there. Instead of useful discussion of future product, we get demonstrations of test mules, announcements of big R&D budgets and new test centers they'll fund, those futuristic concept cars, and, yeah, more promises.

Hyundai to unveil hydrogen fuel cell semi truck

Small interconnected hexagons surround the lit-up badge on the nose of Hyundai's new semi-truck. Though some might see the angular lines as part of a simple grille design, Hyundai portrays it as a scientific symbol of what the truck is all about. The teaser above is the first look at the company's newest fuel cell electric vehicle. Hyundai has been experimenting with and producing fuel cell-powered products for years already. The Tuscon ( ix35 in other markets) is historic in that it's one of the only complete hydrogen vehicles to make it to market. The Nexo, which we had the chance to drive, is the company's first dedicated fuel cell platform, and a recent partnership with Audi demonstrates just how serious Hyundai is about the technology. The next step is applying it to commercial vehicles. While this is simply a teaser, the truck will officially debut at the IAA Commercial Vehicles show, which takes place from September 20 to 27 in Hanover, Germany. Hyundai held back on details, but the sketch does show the truck with numerous aerodynamic pieces, including a streamlined cabin, spokeless dish wheels, a spoiler and a "side protector" that runs alongside the truck and tucks the wheels underneath. At the event, Hyundai will announce official figures and specs on the truck. It is slated to hit the market in 2019, but as of now, it is expected to be in European markets only. Check back for updates soon. Related Video: News Source: Hyundai Green Misc. Auto Shows Hyundai Alternative Fuels Technology Emerging Technologies Truck Commercial Vehicles Electric Hydrogen Cars semi truck iaa

Insider trading ahead of Hyundai-Kia MPG debacle suspected

Reuters is reporting that large-scale insider trading may be at the heart of some particularly fishy stock-selling behavior, just prior to the original announcement about the Hyundai-Kia fuel economy ratings debacle.
On November 1st, Hyundai-Kia shares traded roughly 2.2 million times (the single highest-volume day of the year), and the stock price fell by about four percent. For reference, a standard daily trading volume for the stock in 2012 saw about 600k shares trading hands. On November 2nd, the company made public the bad news about the dropping fuel economy ratings for many of its models. In other words: No one outside of the company (and only a smallish group inside the company, we'd imagine) should have known anything about the impending bad news as of the first day of November. After the announcement, the stock price tanked, as you'd expect, and trading volume was way down as well.
Experts seem fully aware that the whole thing reeks of leaked information and subsequent insider trading. If chicanery on this sort of scale seems wacky to you, you'd be inline with the experts who report to Reuters that the level of trading is absolutely suspicious.