2014 Hyundai Santa Fe Sport 2.0l Turbo on 2040-cars

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Quality issues drive resignation of Hyundai R&D president

Hyundai released a statement Monday announcing that its research and development president, Kwon Moon-sik, and two other executives resigned from their positions, Reuters reports, to "take responsibility for a series of quality issues," according to the statement.
The resignations seem to be related to recent recalls around the globe. A few weeks back, Hyundai recalled 27,500 Genesis sedans from model years 2009 to 2012 in the US for brake fluid that doesn't prevent corrosion of the electronic hydraulic control unit. The recall recently was expanded to include 43,500 Genesis sedans in the US, but nearly 150,000 are reportedly affected including the South Korean market.
"The latest personnel change shows our firm commitment to quality management and reaffirms our will to continuously improve R&D competitiveness," says Hyundai.

Hyundai, Buick dealer apologize in wake of Chinese baby social media incident

A very strange story out of China today, as Hyundai and a Chinese Buick dealer were forced to face allegations of using allusions to an infamous child murder on a social media site as a way of promoting the safety features of their respective vehicles.
The original sad tale goes something like this: On March 4, a man reported to police that he had left his infant child in a running Toyota RAV4 while he ran into a supermarket briefly. When he came back out, the vehicle and the child were gone. Later in the week a suspect turned himself in to the police; confessing to them that he had stolen a sport-utility vehicle, strangled the infant that was in it, and then buried the child in the snow.
As you might imagine, the gristly incident was covered massively in the Chinese media. (There was huge public outcry as well, as evidenced by the vigil scene, above.) "Changchun baby abduction" was very quickly amongst the highest ranking search teams of the China's Weibo social media site - an equivalent of Twitter in the English-speaking world.

Ioniq Unlimited is Hyundai's way to get Millennials to subscribe to a car

Let's state at the outset that a lot of the questions you're going to have about the new Ioniq Unlimited vehicle subscription program from Hyundai will not be answered in this post. This isn't because we didn't ask - we did - but because Hyundai is holding on to those details until some time after the service starts, which will be some time after the first of the year. If we had to guess, we'll get the information we seek at CES in early January. But, hey, we're getting ahead of ourselves. What is Ioniq Unlimited, anyway? It's a subscription service for the all-electric version of the Ioniq. Available only in California (during the pilot program, anyway), Ioniq Unlimited is an Internet-based way to get yourself a 2017 Ionic Electric. There are no negotiations, just a single price that you pay every month. That price includes all sorts of things: registration and Doc fees, recharging fees, unlimited mileage, and scheduled maintenance. Oh, and there's no down payment. Hyundai vice president of corporate and product planning, Mike O'Brien, told AutoblogGreen that the idea here is to appeal to millennials, who like to keep their transactions simple. Sign once, pay once, be done. Hyundai is trying to, "make car ownership as easy as owning a phone," O'Brien said. Maybe that's why the subscription terms are 24 and 36 months. O'Brien would not say if people could cancel early. As for the price, all he would say is that it will be, "very competitive." Yeah, we want more information, too. Whatever they cost, the subscriptions will be good for Hyundai, too, since the cars will be treated like leased vehicles (and thus owned by Hyundai's captive leasing program) and totally counted in the company's CAFE numbers. We'll have more details, well, whenever Hyundai feels like it's time to share. For more information on Vehicle Subscription Services, check out the Complete Guide. Related Video: