2013 Hyundai Sonata Se Sedan 4-door 2.0l on 2040-cars

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Why Toyota's fuel cell play is one big green gamble

Imagine going to the ballet on Saturday evening for an 8 pm performance. The orchestra begins warming up shortly before the show, but it turns out the star performer isn't ready at the appointed time. The orchestra keeps playing, doing its best to keep the audience engaged and, most importantly, in the building. It keeps this up until the star finally shows and is ready to dance ... which turns out to be ten years later. That's a Samuel Beckett play. It's also how many observers, analysts, alt-fuel fans and alt-fuel intenders feel about the arrival of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (FCVs) – the few of them who are still in the building, that is. Toyota's hydrogen development timeline rivals that of the US space program. In fact, within the halls of Toyota alone, research on FCVs has been going on for nearly 22 years, meaning that one company's development timeline for FCVs rivals that of the US space program – it was 1945 when Werner von Braun's team began re-assembling Germany's World War II V2 rockets and figuring out how to launch them into space and it wasn't until 1969 when a man set landing gear down on that sunlit lunar quarry. The development of the atom bomb only took half as long, and that's if we go all the way back to when Leo Szilard patented the mere idea of it, in 1934. Carmakers didn't give up on hydrogen in spite of the public having given up on carmakers ever making something of it, so there was a good chance that hydrogen criers announcing the mass-market adoption of periodic chart element number two one would eventually be right. Now is that time. And Toyota, not alone in researching FCVs but arguably having done the most to keep FCVs in the news, isn't even going to be first to market. That honor will go to Hyundai, surprising just about everyone at the LA Auto Show with news of a hydrogen fuel cell Tucson going on sale in the spring. The other bit of thunder stolen: while Toyota's talking about trying to get the price of its offering down to something between $50,000 and $100,000, Hyundai is pitching its date with the future at a lease price of $499 per month ($250 more than the lease price of a conventional Tucson), free hydrogen and maintenance, and availability at Enterprise Rent-A-Car if you just want to try it out. We've seen and driven Toyota's offering and we all know its success doesn't depend on cross-shopping, showroom dealing and lease sweeteners.

Biden says U.S. is willing to continue talks with South Korea on EV subsidy

SEOUL — President Joe Biden has expressed willingness to continue talks with South Korea over recent U.S. legislation that denies subsidies to most foreign makers of electric vehicles (EVs), an official from Yoon's office said on Wednesday. Biden gave the assurance in a letter to South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, who had asked the U.S. president last month for help to allay Seoul's concerns that the new U.S. rules would hurt South Korea's automakers. "We assess that President Biden reaffirmed his understanding of our concerns through a personally signed letter .... it shows Biden's willingness to be considerate towards South Korean companies in the future," the official said. The Inflation Reduction Act, signed by Biden in August, requires EVs assembled in North America to qualify for tax credits in the United States, but excluded Hyundai Motor Co and its affiliate Kia Corp from EV subsidies, as they do not yet make the vehicles there. As a result, only about 20 EVs qualify for subsidies under the new rules. Related video: This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. Government/Legal Green Genesis Hyundai Kia EV tax credit

2019 Hyundai Santa Fe gets $550 price bump, more tech

Hyundai's all-new 2019 Santa Fe will start at $25,500 and include more safety and other technology when it goes on sale later this year. Hyundai also confirms that the three-row version of the crossover will be renamed the Santa Fe XL for 2019, while it's developing an as-yet unnamed three-row, eight-passenger SUV, filling a hole in the Korean automaker's lineup. The Santa Fe's new starting price is $550 higher than the 2018 Santa Fe Sport, which is going away as a separate nameplate. (To keep the moves straight: The former Santa Fe Sport becomes just plain Santa Fe. The former Santa Fe becomes Santa Fe XL.) The 2019 Santa Fe's price doesn't include the $980 destination fee, which nudges the starting price up to $26,480 for the front-wheel-drive SE model. It's offered in seven trim models, topping out at the all-wheel-drive Ultimate 2.0T, which starts at $39,780. The 2019 Santa Fe borrows some of the Hyundai SmartSense safety technology from the Santa Fe Sport, including forward-collision avoidance, lane-keeping assistance and blind-spot collision assist. Other standard technology includes idle stop-start and Android Auto and Apple CarPlay compatibility. Hyundai has also updated the looks on its fourth-generation crossover, with more chiseled hard lines in the body, a rising beltline, improved visibility and a reorganized interior with more storage space. Powering the ute is the base-level 2.4-liter inline-four engine, which makes 185 horsepower and 178 pound-feet of torque, or a 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder putting out 235 hp and 260 lb-ft. An eight-speed automatic transmission routes power to the front or all four wheels. Fuel economy ratings top out at 22 miles per gallon in the city, 29 on the highway and 25 combined for the 2.4-liter engine in front-wheel drive, a slight improvement over its predecessor.