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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.

2012-2013 Hyundai Azera recalled for passenger airbag fault

Hyundai is recalling 5,200 units of its Azera sedan over a possible airbag sensor malfunction. The occupant detection system in models built between May 22, 2012 and November 23, 2012 might not be able to tell what kind of passenger (adult, child, or child seat) is in the front seat, which could cause improper deployment of the airbag.
Azeras from the 2012 and 2013 model year are affected. Hyundai hasn't yet said when owners will be notified, but once that happens, they'll be able to take their sedans to dealers to have the system recalibrated free of charge. There's a bulletin from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration below with more information.

370-hp Veloster by Fox Marketing rounds out Hyundai's SEMA lineup

Hyundai is certainly bringing the horsepower wars to Las Vegas next month. We already know that its SEMA lineup includes a 1,000-horsepower Genesis Coupe, but now the company has announced that it is teaming up with Fox Marketing to create a 370-hp Veloster Turbo.
Keeping the Turbo's 1.6-liter engine, this show car gets an extra 169 hp by adding a bigger turbo and intercooler, cat-back exhaust and nitrous and methanol injection... oh, and the engine runs on 101-octane racing fuel. The brakes have been upgraded with six-piston calipers and bigger rotors, while the suspension now includes adjustable coil-overs. And since this is SEMA, this Veloster Turbo gets the requisite flashy exterior styling.
Scroll down for the full press release, but we'll have some better shots of this Veloster in just a few weeks.