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Goes Both Ways: Free-trade pact sees South Korean brands losing share at home

France has been vocal, but not alone, in noting the rise of the South Korean automakers in Europe. The signing of a free-trade pact in 2011 between South Korea and the EU, along with the especially value-conscious buyers in a crisis-stricken Europe, has seen market share increases measuring in the double digits for Hyundai and Kia - analysts expect 14-percent growth for the two in 2012.
A report in Bloomberg has found that there's pain at the other end, too: The pact more than halved import tariffs on European cars headed to South Korea to 3.2 percent, and prices are now close enough to domestic offerings for more South Koreans to pay the premium for foreign luxury nameplates and the cachet they confer. Products sold by the five domestic automakers hogged 92 percent of the market last year, and sales have dropped 5.2 percent this year whereas import sales have risen by 24 percent. This will mark the first year that imports claimed ten percent of the market; compare that to 2002, when domestic market share in the world's 11th largest auto market was 99 percent.
The Germans are at the head of the arrow, counting for 65 percent of imported car sales, but every foreign maker has seen double-digit gains. Analysts think foreign makes could ultimately grab 15 percent of the market.

Hyundai-Kia claims 'greenest' title from Honda, Big Three still big losers

Let's start with the good news. On average, any new car you buy in the US today will be 43 percent cleaner than any average new car in 1998. Here's some more good news, for Korea anyway, Hyundai-Kia has been named the cleanest automaker in the latest study by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), which looked at 2013 model year vehicles sold between October 2012 and September 2013 from the top eight automakers (by volume). The bad news? The big three Detroit automakers are, on average, still making the dirtiest cars in the showroom. The big three Detroit automakers are, on average, still making the dirtiest cars in the showroom. The problem for Ford, General Motors and Chrysler lies in their trucks, which sell well but tend to have pretty bad fuel economy (compared to sedans, at least). The UCS calculates its list by averaging "the per-mile emissions for each light-duty vehicle sold by each automaker" and then factors in "the fuel economy, fuel type, and sales volume of each type of vehicle sold by each automaker" and "the upstream global warming emissions from producing and distributing the fuel used by each vehicle, as well as emissions from the vehicles themselves." That all means that, the more trucks you sell, the worse you're gonna do. Then again, the more trucks you sell with 18 mpg, the more you're helping drivers put CO2 into the air, so the UCS is doing a fair comparison of the things that this study is trying to track. More details on the methodology are available on page six of the study PDF. In case you were wondering (we were), UCS did make sure to use the revised mpg numbers for Hyundai and Kia models that were originally overstated. Hyundai has apologized for and fixed those figures and even with the new, corrected numbers, Hyundai's total emissions are dropping at a rate of about three percent a year, enough for it to take the greenest company title for the first time. In fact, this is the first time that an automaker other than Honda has come out on top in the UCS ranking, which has been released six times now, including the first one in 2000 (which looked at 1998 model year data). In 2010, Honda was almost knocked off the winner's perch by both Hyundai and Toyota, but managed to hold on. Chrysler, on the other hand, came in dead last (again) in the ranking of the top eight automakers, snagging the "dirtiest tailpipe" award once (again). Read the UCS' press release below.

Keep it simple, stupid | 2017 Hyundai Ioniq Hybrid and Plug-In First Drive

The Ioniq is Hyundai's "golden medal project," conceived from the outset as a car to beat the Toyota Prius and be the most efficient on the market. Ki-Sang Lee, Hyundai's senior vice president in charge of eco R&D, promised that if they could accomplish that feat, he'd give every single engineer on the project a gold medal. The result of their work is an attractive trio – hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and electric – built on the company's first dedicated green vehicle platform. And Lee gave out more than 500 gold medals to his engineers. With a growing number of drivers – bolstered by Millenials replacing the buying power of baby boomers – who value efficiency and consider the environmental impact of their purchases, hybrids and electric cars should be a popular choice, right? While cheap gas has not helped to encourage people to make the switch to greener vehicles in the last couple years, the added cost and complexity of electrified cars have also been barriers to wider adoption. Hyundai's approach appears solid. The Ioniq hybrids are straightforward, affordable, and something drivers would be proud to own without appearing smug. So Hyundai has built the car people claim to want, but will the drivers show up at dealerships? The Ioniq is attractive for a number of reasons, not the least of which is pricing. The Ioniq Hybrid starts at $23,035, undercutting the Toyota Prius by $2,535 (with its base MSRP of $25,570). It's also more efficient, with EPA mpg figures of 57 city/59 highway/58 combined. The most efficient Prius (the Two Eco trim level) falls slightly short at 58 city/53 highway/56 combined. While the Ioniq Plug-In Hybrid doesn't have price or fuel economy figures yet – it doesn't go on sale until the fourth quarter of 2017 – we do know its 8.9-kW battery pack offers over 27 miles of all-electric range and can be topped off in 2.5 hours on a Level 2 charger. The Ioniq's green cred doesn't stop at its efficient powertrain. Sitting inside the cabin, you wouldn't realize that the soft plastics contain 25 percent sugar cane, or that the headliner and carpet contain about 20 percent of the same renewable plant material. There's no way to tell by look or feel that door trim uses recycled plastics mixed with wood powder and volcanic stone, making it 20 percent lighter. Interior metallic paints use soybean oil to lessen their environmental impact. Even better, it all agrees with the senses.