Archive for Hyundai

Hyundai has just launched the new Hyundai H1 11-seater van at the 2007 Thailand Motor Expo. The Hyundai H1 - also known as the Hyundai Starex in certain markets - is a van that can be configured with either 8 or 11 seats aimed at customers who wish to have a people mover but do not want to spend so much on luxury MPVs. The Hyundai Starex goes head to head against vehicles such as the Ford Transit, the Volkswagen Transporter and the Mercedes Benz Vito. The Thai model is configured with 11 seats.

There are two engine options available - a 2.5 liter turbocharged intercooled oil burner with 100 PS and 226Nm of torque, a 2.5 liter CRDi turbocharged intercooled oil burner with a variable geometry turbocharger making 170 hp and 392Nm of torque, as well as a 2.4 liter Theta family gasoline engine delivering 170 horsepower and 223Nm of torque.

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Hyundai Motor has unveiled a version of the Hyundai Genesis sedan for the Korean domestic market at its Namyang R&D Center in Hwaseong. It will begin full-scale production in South Korea this month and wil hit the Korean showrooms in early January. It will be launched in China and the US within the first half of 2008.

The Hyundai Genesis will feature two V6 engines (3.3 liter and 3.8 liter) and a 375hp V8 engine and will be priced from under US$30,000 to right under US$40,000. It is built on a new rear wheel drive chassis.

Comparitively, the BMW 5-Series costs between US$44,300 for the 6 cylinder 528i model up to US$58,500 for the V8-powered 550i sedan.

Related Posts:
Hyundai Genesis Sedan Concept
Hyundai Concept Genesis Coupe

Haldex has just received a prototype order for an all-wheel drive system from its first Asian customer - Hyundai-Kia. The prototype will be based on Haldex’s 4th generation limited slip coupling and the all-new electronic LSD called the Haldex XWD. The system also functions as a torque vectoring system.

Current Haldex all-wheel drive customers power Volkswagen’s 4MOTION system and is used on cars from its owned brands like Audi, Seat and Skoda. It’s technology also gives the Volvo S80 traction on all four wheels. It’s most recent customer is Saab, which will use Haldex’s systems for the Saab 9-3 XWD.

This is the sedan version of Hyundai’s two new RWD cars, the Hyundai Genesis Sedan. Hyundai has taken care to give the car a decent 53:47 weight distribution, and claim the body structure is more rigid than a 5-Series. We’ll see how this translates to actual road dynamics when the final production version is out, but on paper it looks decent.

Under the hood is a 4.6 liter V8 engine from the new Tau family, putting out more than 300 horsepower. This engine was originally also destined for the Genesis Coupe but somehow in the end for some reason their product planning decided not to put a V8 in the concept coupe.

More photos and a video after the jump.

Click here to read the rest of Hyundai Genesis Sedan Concept

The new Hyundai Concept Genesis Coupe is the near-production result of the HCD series of concept coupes and crossovers. It goes into production in Spring 2009, and will most probably be slightly more production friendly, with a more toned down exterior design compared to this concept.

Done up in a bright Sonic Orange and Ballistic Black two-tone design, the Hyundai Concept Genesis Coupe is powered by the 3.8 liter V6 from the Genesis Sedan mounted at the front mated to a 6-speed manual, sending over 300 horsepower to the rear wheels. The FR design, a classic sports car drivetrain configuration. 0-100km/h time is expected to be under 6 seconds, and the car will also have an LSD differential.

Although still a concept car, there is some preliminary info to preview the final production car specifications. The 2+2 coupe has a wheelbase of 2,820mm, a length of 4,666mm, a width of 1,902mm and a height of 1,386mm. It rides on 20 inch wheels wrapped with Hankook 255/35ZR20 wheels at the front and wider 275/35ZR20 wheels at the rear. Disc brakes are Brembos, with sizes 340mm and 330mm with twin calipers for the front and rear discs respectively.

Hyundai has an ambitious dream of delivering an Infiniti G37 experience at Mitsubishi Eclipse prices with the production Hyundai Genesis Coupe, so this will be quite an interesting wait-and-see for Spring 2009.

More photos after the jump.

Related Posts:
A spyshot of the production Genesis coupe interior

Click here to read the rest of Hyundai Concept Genesis Coupe - RWD V6!

Here are more official details on the car Hyundai has decided to call the Hyundai Sonata Transform, basically the mid-life facelift of the latest fourth generation Hyundai Sonata. The new Sonata facelift will be launched first in the Korean market for the 2008 model year, and the rest of the world will get it soonest for the 2009 model year, this probably includes Malaysia as well, pending our local distributor’s plans of course.

I like the current Sonata’s design and I say Hyundai has taken the new Sonata facelift backward in terms of exterior design - for example, the headlamps are now bigger so they look less sleek. But the new interior is a total redesign and looks much more upmarket than the current interior - a huge improvement to me, but very obviously “inspired” by the second generation Lexus RX/Toyota Harrier interior.

In Korea, the 2.0 liter Sonata gets its power boosted up to 163 PS but internationally the new engine specs is announced as having 158 PS. This probably has to do with different tune-ups for different countries having different emissions laws. The new 2.4 liter puts out 171 PS (179 PS in Korea), up from 161 PS. This power gain is achieved through the addition of a new variable intake system to the Theta engine family, and variable valve timing is now on both intake and exhaust ports.

More images and videos of the facelifted Sonata Transform after the jump.

Source

Click here to read the rest of 2009 Hyundai Sonata Transform facelift

Here’s something to look forward to in the D-segment sedan market here in Malaysia. Hyundai has facelifted its Hyundai Sonata and it’s only a matter of time before we receive a similiar update here in Malaysia.

The most obvious changes are the new bumper and grille designs, but the most impressive feature of the facelift is the new second generation Theta engine under the hood. This new Theta engine brings up the 2.0 liter’s power from 145 PS up to 158 PS, and the 2.4 liter’s power from 161 PS up to 171 PS. The 2.0 liter engine horsepower figures beat the figures produced by the Civic 2.0S and the Lancer 2.0 GT’s engines.

Interestingly, the Lancer 2.0 GT’s 4B11 GEMA engine and the Hyundai-Kia Theta engine both share the same 86mm x 86mm “square” bore and stroke - the fruits of the GEMA engine project with different head configuration perhaps?

This new Theta II engine will also likely find its way into the Kia Optima when it is facelifted, further enhancing the car’s already very appealing specs package.

Hyundai’s i-Blue concept car will be the Korean car manufacturer’s first non-SUV hydrogen experiment, instead as you can see it is based on a crossover car-like platform, most probably a tribute of sorts to the Toyota Prius form factor.

The i-Blue was developed at the Hyundai technical center in Chiba, Japan and runs on Hyundai’s third-generation hydrogen cell technology. Not much details have been revealed at this point on what exactly this third-gen hydrogen cell is. We’ll have to wait until Frankfurt 2007 to find out.

Even though the Hyundai i30 has not gone on sale in the European market yet, MS-Design already has a sporty bodykit out for it which includes a new front bumper and rear design, front lip, side skirts, rear skirts as well as a rear spoiler. A nice touch is twin exhaust tailpipes to match the new rear bumper design.

Ride height has also been lowered with sport springs which also supposedly gives the car a sportier ride. The wheels are 7-spoke units that come default in 17 inch sizes but with an 18 inch option for those who desire something bigger.

The Hyundai i30’s brother the Kia cee’d has also been dressed up, but by Kia themselves in the form of the Kia cee’d XR. Check out the ceed’ XR in the related posts linked below.

Related Posts:
Kia developing XR range of performance vehicles
Kia cee’d XR

Hyundai is taking a slightly different approach to electro-combustion hybrid powertrains. It will be releasing a hybrid version of the Hyundai Elantra in 2009, and it will be powered by an LPG-electric hybrid engine!

Estimated fuel consumption for the new hybrid LPG Elantra is 30% of the standard Elantra. Hyundai decided to make an LPG hybrid for the Korean market because Liquid Petroleum Gas is cheap (half price in Korea) as well as sufficiently available at most pumping stations. There are currently only two hybrid cars sold in Korea - the Lexus RX400h and the Honda Civic Hybrid.

This move by Hyundai takes advantage of a recently announced new ruling that gives hybrid cars in Korea tax breaks and subsidies. An Elantra hybrid using gasoline for it’s combustion engine instead of LPG will be released in 2010, and this might find it’s way to the US market.

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