1993 Volvo 240 Base Sedan 4-door 2.3l on 2040-cars

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Genesis cars win accolades, offer value — so why are sales so bad?

My high-school buddy Brent Cormier was so smitten with the Genesis G80 when he saw it at an event I hosted at SXSW in 2016 he bought a used 2013 Hyundai Genesis a short time later and fell in love with the car. "It surpasses my every expectation," said Cormier, a self-described "renaissance man" who owns and runs a real estate agency with his wife Laura, is a food service executive chef and part owner of Austin-based Thin the Herd Guitars. "I was locked into Mercedes and Audi for 10 years," he added. "And felt trapped in an endless pit of maintenance costs." After owning the Genesis over the past two years — including using it as an Uber and Lyft driver to earn extra cash — Cormier learned what some frugal luxury sedan buyers and a handful of car reviewers have discovered: Genesis offers great bang for the buck compared to other premium brands and can compete with the best in terms of performance, features and comfort. Hyundai's luxury brand also earned a prominent third-party endorsement last week when for the first time Genesis topped J.D. Power's 2018 APEAL study, surpassing German luxury-performance icon Porsche. The APEAL study (which stands for Automotive Performance, Execution and Layout) "measures owners' emotional attachment and level of excitement across 77 attributes," ranging from performance to comfort, and asks nearly 68,000 owners of new 2018 models to score vehicles on a 1,000-point scale. In its second year ranked as a stand-alone brand, Genesis earned an APEAL score that bumped it up 15 points to 884 and helped push it past Porsche — and past BMW, Lincoln, Mercedes-Benz, Audi, Volvo, Cadillac, Land Rover and Lexus, in order of ranking. Last month, Genesis also topped J.D. Power's Initial Quality Survey (IQS) for the first time this year. And both its models were awarded Top Safety Pick Plus ratings by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, among 11 Plus ratings in all for Korean vehicles. Despite high J.D. Power rankings and great reviews, Genesis U.S. sales were off 50 percent for the first six months of 2018 compared to 2017, and in June Genesis sold only 796 vehicles — the first time U.S. numbers dropped below 1,000 in a month. Part of Genesis's APEAL and IQS success can be attributed to its small product lineup: just two models, the G80 and G90 sedans, with a third, the 2019 G70, launching later this year. And while those numbers may help in J.D.

Volvo buyers have best credit scores among all auto shoppers

Experian, the US credit reporting agency, recently concluded a study into the financing and credit scores of US car buyers. One of the prime findings was that Volvo buyers enjoy the strongest credit scores among new car shoppers from all brands (nota bene, these are Experian's own numbers and can differ from other agencies). Unlike the Forbes report on the same story, though, we don't find that surprising at all, nor do we think it necessarily helps Volvo's upscale brand aspirations. The Gothenburg-based carmaker has sold its wares on tank-like safety for decades, so it seems natural that its buyers would be just as safe with and attentive to their credit scores as they are with their choice of vehicle.
Audi was ranked fourth by consumer credit score, Porsche seventh and Mercedes-Benz ninth, yet the fact that Volvo outranks them in this metric is probably a plus to its bottom line but not necessarily its image. It's not unfair to say more people desire those other luxury brands - Volvo itself has admitted as much - and people in the throes of desire have been known to be a little more let-it-ride about things like credit scores. The differences aren't huge, though: compared to Volvo's 818, Audi shoppers scored at 813, Mercedes shoppers 802. Lexus and Acura intenders took the other two steps on the top-credit-scores podium.
Mitsubishi took the honors at the other end of the charts, Experian finding that its potential customers, with an average of 604, had the lowest scores. Mitsubishi was followed by Suzuki and Dodge. On the other side of the financing table, Toyota led the way in how many of its vehicles were bought with bank assistance, followed closely by Ford, Chevrolet taking third place. Also of note, and for whatever it's worth, not one automaker made both the 'top ten by financing' and 'top ten by credit score' lists, but four made both the financing and 'bottom ten by credit score' lists: Chevrolet, Nissan, Kia and Dodge.

Volvo to unveil permanent high-beam headlamp technology [w/video]

Volvo will be showing off its Active High Beam technology at the Geneva Motor Show next week. The system will allow drivers to use their high beams all the time and adds another responsibility to the cameras mounted by the rearview mirror, making them detect traffic ahead, whether it be another car or a truck or motorcycle and in the same lane or oncoming. When a vehicle is detected, a special projector in the Xenon lamps can block out only the portion of the high beam that would impair the other driver. Volvo says the system is accurate down to a 1.5-inch margin around another object.
Active High Beam will be fitted to the Volvo S60, V60 and XC60 and we have to assume they mean the non-US versions of those cars. Audi has a similar technology that it calls "matrix beam lighting," and due to the way the US Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard code is written, such active control of high beams is verboten on cars sold here.
The Swedish brand also plans to present a collision-avoidance technology it's calling a "world-first." The press release below has more information and the accompanying video demonstrates the lighting tech.