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Amazon Prime will now bring you a Hyundai, but you can't keep it

We already rely on Amazon Prime to bring us necessities like food, clothing, and five-pound Hershey bars, so why not entire cars? Hyundai is going to try that, although only to quickly bring you a car to test-drive. There's no one-click ordering for Elantras yet. The program, called "Prime Now. Drive Now", is an extension of the Prime Now fast delivery service that brings certain items to people in select areas in under two hours. It's available this weekend and next, only to people in Los Angeles and Orange County. Prime members can hop online and schedule a time between 9 am and 7 pm, Saturday or Sunday, and designate a preferred location for the test drive. After that, a "trained expert" will be sent with a 2017 Hyundai Elantra for the potential customer to try out for 45 to 60 minutes. If after that they want to purchase an Elantra, the expert can then direct them to a local Hyundai dealer to complete the transaction. This is an interesting approach to reaching consumers and could have benefits for them. People who are too busy to visit a dealer for a test drive can schedule a more convenient time and place to try the car. For people who get stressed out with the dealer experience and the pressure to purchase a car (which is, like, everyone) this could also be a more comfortable way to look at one. It's also a clever way for Hyundai to sort of circumvent its dealers while still letting them handle the final sale, a sort of indirect direct-sales solution. On the flip side, this program means consumers may only try the car that arrives at their door, and there's a decent chance that it will be a high trim with options and features that they might not want or be able to afford. It might still require some shopping around at the dealer to see what the different trim levels and options are like. Though only a limited trial for now, it will be interesting to see if Hyundai continues the program, and having more test-drive options can't hurt. Related Video: Featured Gallery 2017 Hyundai Elantra View 51 Photos Image Credit: Hyundai Hyundai Car Buying Sedan Amazon amazon prime

Hyundai deferring car payments for furloughed federal workers

Since the US government shut down early this morning, more than 800,000 federal employees could be furloughed without pay until a deal is reached to start the government back up. To help affected employees cope with the temporary layoffs, Hyundai is expanding its Assurance program to defer all of their auto loan or lease payments until they're called back to work.
"We recognize the impact on family budgets that the furlough will drive," says John Krafcik, president and CEO of Hyundai Motor America. The automaker also says it will allow furloughed employees to buy new cars during October with help from a 90-day payment deferral.
We're sure Hyundai's act of goodwill relieves some of the stress that furloughed Hyundai owners and their families are experiencing. Check out the press release below.

The techie choice | 2017 Toyota Prius Prime Quick Spin

The Prius nameplate has been inexorably tied to the green car scene for a long time now. When Toyota unleashed the Prius Prime upon the world, we said it was the best Prius yet. But this is no longer a world where Toyota's hybrids are automatically crowned king. Our recent time with the Hyundai Ioniq trio was a stark reminder that the economical, eco-conscious competition is getting stiffer. We put some miles on a Prius Prime to see how our recent Ioniq Plug-In Hybrid test colors our view of Toyota's prime contender. Our first impression: the Prius design is very clean and inorganic. As sterile as it feels, the design appears to have a lot of actual thought behind it. Our Advanced trim tester is spiritually in touch with the mobile gadget culture, with a huge touchscreen, digitization of seemingly everything, and white and black glossy plastic aesthetic. It's a tech-heavy design that will likely seem familiar to those of us who have been interfacing with Apple designs for the past 10 or so years. The Ioniq Plug-In Hybrid, on the other hand, remains truer to the look and feel most drivers expect from their commuters. It's less about user interface, modes, and drive data, and more about just getting behind the wheel and driving. The Ioniq Plug-In Hybrid hardly even distinguishes itself from its plugless counterparts, opting to go green under cover rather than the in-your-face futurism the Prius projects. It retains the traditional instrument cluster in front of the driver, too, which the Prius Prime lacks. In the Toyota, you'll have to look around the car for the right display with the information you're looking for – there's the huge central touchscreen with all its menus, as well as smaller displays above it on the dash – or you can find your speed on the HUD. The Prius is composed in its handling, but doesn't provide much of the sensory feedback that makes one feel connected to the chassis. The steering feels super artificial, but the car stays fairly flat in the corners without providing too much feedback through the seat of your pants. Hyundai's offering, though, proved to be a surprisingly willing dance partner in the corners. While feeling equally as capable as the Prius, the Ioniq's sense of connection through steering and suspension made the act of stitching one turn after another together enough to get our blood pumping. Sport mode makes the Prius Prime slightly livelier, though.