#hyundai

Near the start of this decade, I thought the Hyundai Sonata was perhaps the most attractive mid-size sedan on the market.

I also thought it drove like crap.

The steering was disconnected from the road, it felt slower than its rivals, et cetera.

Hyundai’s next Sonata was better in terms of driving dynamics and on-road behavior, but its styling was conservative to the point of boring. It felt like Hyundai was flailing about, unsure how to build a car that both drove well and looked good, while its rivals were having no problem doing the same. Even its corporate sibling, Kia, was offering up an engaging and handsome Optima.

Enter the 2020 Sonata. It looks good (better from certain angles and with certain colors), but does it drive well? Can it walk and chew gum at the same time?

Introduced last year, Genesis’ third — and newest — model is the G70, a value-packed rear- or all-wheel-drive sports sedan aimed at BMW 3 Series and Mercedes-Benz C-Class intenders. We could throw the Jaguar XE in there, too, but no one buys that car.

Like its Kia Stinger platform mate, the G70 kicks up its feet with the help of a base 2.0-liter turbocharged inline-four or uplevel 3.3-liter twin-turbo V6. However, on the horizon looms a larger, more potent entry-level powerplant.

Unless you’ve been living under an especially virulent rock, it’ll not have escaped your notice that most manufacturers are building crossovers and mini-utes (apologies to our readers in Oz for the loose usage of “ute”) to either replace or supplement the cars at the entry-level end of their lineup. After all, customers have to start somewhere, and if an affordable rig exists for young or first time buyers, the company stands a better chance of selling that customer their second car. And third. And so forth.

Priced at $17,250, the entry level Hyundai Venue SE definitely fits the bill. Known for packing its cars to the gunwales with standard features not generally found at instant ramen price levels, has Hyundai taken the same approach with this Venue?

No one wants to come in last. With the Volkswagen e-Golf and Smart Fortwo EQ Electric Drive Whatever discontinued, Hyundai’s compact Ioniq Electric hatchback was poised to be the lowest-range electric vehicle in the North American market (minus, of course, the limited-availability, lease-only Honda Clarity EV).

Clearly, this looming position at the bottom of the ladder left a bad taste in Hyundai’s mouth. Preferring to see Nissan there, it set about making the necessary changes.

If you’re keeping track, the Vision T Plug-in Hybrid SUV Concept is the seventh design study to roll out of Hyundai’s styling studio in recent memory. Appearing Wednesday at the L.A. Auto Show, the plug-in utility vehicle has the bad timing of debuting at the same moment Toyota unveiled a plug-in crossover you’ll soon be able to buy and drive home.

Unfortunate timing aside, the concept does give us a glimpse of Hyundai’s future.

Think back to early 2015. January, to be exact. The world was nearly five years younger, and social media was less of a scourge. Far fewer grey hairs polluted this writer’s temples, his cynicism was still manageable, and the unlikely star of the Detroit International Auto Show happened to be a unique unibody pickup from Hyundai.

The Santa Cruz Concept unveiled at that show (seen above for the umpteenth time) employed clamshell doors for access to a tight backseat and a bed that straddled the line between Colorado and Baja. Boasting a modern, eye-catching body, it positioned itself as a youthful, entry-level activity vehicle for those with little interest in the size and expense of a larger, traditional pickup.

Nearly five years later, the Santa Cruz is finally, officially headed for production.

Bad product decisions cost auto manufacturers money, yet history provides us with many such examples. In today’s QOTD, we’re going to consider the best of the worst in poor automotive decision making. Present or past, anything goes in today’s inquiry. What vehicle makes you really wonder “what were they thinking?”

Noise-canceling technologies have become a handy little tool wedged inside the belt of many automakers. Aimed at reducing unpleasant road noise, most systems invert incoming sound waves to produce an exact negative of the ambient sound you don’t want to hear. They work best when you don’t notice them, which is pretty much always, but Hyundai Group claims there’s more work to be done before the tech is perfect.

As a result, the Korean manufacturer has developed an upgraded version of its current active noise control setup (ANC), one it calls “the world’s first Road Noise Active Noise Control.” Rather than simply piping in sounds designed to offset road noise, the new system (referred to as “RANC” by the automaker) also analyses in-cabin sound to make adjustments to help nullify unpalatable engine and road drone.

Crossovers are our future, it seems. Every time I crack open another issue of this dusty website, I’m confronted and confounded by the proliferation of tall (and not-so-tall) hatchbacks in every possible size category.

The 2019 Hyundai Kona is, for the moment, the smallest of five crossovers in the Hyundai lineup – at least until the inexplicably-smaller Venue shows up very soon. Where does it fit? Or is it destined to be a misfit?

In April, Hyundai confirmed it would introduce a performance-oriented Sonata sometime in 2020. The model was supposed to yield over 275 horsepower, leaving many wondering if it would hail from the brand’s N Division. Hyundai later said it would actually be supplying an N-Line car, placing it a step below the fully fledged N. But this turned out to be good news — because it leaves room for a more powerful Sonata in the lineup.

While the vehicle’s existence is still speculative, albeit probable, Korean Car Blog reports that a midsize N is actually in development. It claims the Sonata N will be be released next fall, with the N-Line debuting at this year’s LA Auto Show.

It wasn’t long ago that Hyundai, having rocketed out of the recession on the strength of efficient — and newly improved — product, canned its American CEO over declining sales and made Operation Crossover its primary focus.

The sales slump was almost entirely the product of American buyers’ cold-shouldering of traditional passenger cars, to which Hyundai brass saw a utility vehicle surge as the only remedy. Seems they were right, as Hyundai’s now sitting pretty — and there’s another crossover that’s yet to land.

Hyundai has released a handful images of the updated Azera sedan, proving again that the manufacturer is not adverse to taking risks. While we haven’t seen the vehicle around these parts since the 2017 model year, it has continued on in other parts of the world, often under the Grandeur name, and growing more handsome with age.

While perhaps not as comely as the 2020 Hyundai Sonata Americans stand to receive, the South Korean brand’s revamped Azera/Grandeur sticks to its tradition of bold styling updates by incorporating headlamps into a diamond-pattern grille. The end result creates an effect that makes the lights appear as if they’re located behind it. Similar in concept to the hidden headlamps of the late 1960s, its execution is a quite bit different — giving international markets something rather novel.

Earlier this week, Mazda hauled the covers off its MX-30, an EV with more than a hint of RX-8 and MX-5. The company’s decision to imbue the trucklet with clamshell doors and a jacked-up posture cements two things in your author’s foggy mind: first, EVs are here for good; second, most of them will be shaped like pseudo-offroaders.

Which got me thinking about the Hyundai Kona. Available in many trims (including a base model we’ve profiled here before), it is also offered in EV form, bearing less grille than the original Infiniti Q. With three trim levels in the order books for this Korean electron eater, is the cheapest one a customer’s best bet?

Hyundai Australia has tossed together a one-off model for the soul purpose of promoting its performance division, calling the creation the iMax N “Drift Bus.”

You’re probably saying to yourself, “Isn’t this basically the same concept as the Ford Supervan?” And you’d be right. But every sunset is essentially the same as the one that came before, and you don’t hear anybody complaining when they finally take time out to enjoy one.

It should be mentioned that your author has a strong affinity for both sleepers and vans — parking the iMax N right up his alley. Fear not, however, as everything possible is being done to ensure this doesn’t turn into a disgusting carousel of praise for a vehicle Hyundai doesn’t even plan on manufacturing and would never sell. But we should get started, because I cannot wait to tell you all about how much I love this square slice of automotive divinity.

There’s a new version of a rarely-seen car coming out for 2020, meaning if you’re living in the right place, and can find one, you may be able to get into a $109/month lease with nothing down. That’s currently the best lease offer in the country. So, what is this low-priced wonder car?

Well, it gets 124 miles to a charge, seats five, and hails from Ulsan, South Korea.