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Hyundai testing Sprinter-style commercial van

Commercial vehicle sales are a key component to the success of many automakers, and in its persistent drive to become one of the largest in the world, it's a segment Hyundai can't very well ignore. But while it offers the i800 and H-series vans overseas, it hasn't offered anything bigger than a Tucson or Santa Fe in North America since the demise of the Entourage and Veracruz. That could all change in the near future, however, if these latest spy shots are anything to go by.
Pictured undergoing testing in Europe, this Hyundai commercial van prototype looks to be about the size of a Mercedes-Benz Sprinter or Ram ProMaster. There's little we can tell from these disguised spy shots at the moment, other than to note that this Hyundai is big and has small wheels, in typical European van style. We can't even tell if this is front-, rear- or all-wheel drive.
Of course, we have no indication at this point whether the van pictured here will make the transatlantic voyage to American showrooms. But with Mercedes having led the Euro van charge with the aforementioned Sprinter, and with the likes of Ford, Ram and Nissan all following suit, it seems possible. However, between the upgrades to service departments often necessary to accommodate such large vehicles and the sales retraining necessary to court commercial truck customers, doing so wouldn't simply be a plug-and-play operation - it would undoubtedly take a great deal of effort and money.

We get our hands on Android Auto [w/video]

After a week with version one of Android Auto in a 2015 Hyundai Sonata, my opinion is that it fulfills the promise of the technology. I couldn't even exploit it fully because I'm not married to the Android ecosystem. At my desk right now there's a PC in front of me, an iPad on my left, and an Android phone on my right. My Android phone is, in fact, so old that it's not compatible with Android Auto. So in addition to a Sonata, Hyundai let me borrow a Nexus 5 smartphone and a Motorola Moto360 watch. Yet even with all that gear, which, in practical terms is someone else's borrowed digital life, Android Auto still showed itself to be tech worth having. When you start the Sonata you get the standard Hyundai infotainment screen. Plug your phone in, and you'll get an option to click over to Android Auto. At that point, you lose the ability to use your phone, which is the purpose of the system, to keep you from using the handset. Since the contents of your phone are ported to the head unit, there is hardly any reason to reach for the portable device anyway. The Google Now screen comes up first, populated with a series of notifications resulting from Google having learned your life and kept track of where you've been going, who you've been calling, and what you've been searching for. After only two days, Google Now understood that I probably lived in Venice, CA, and not in Orange County, where the phone had previously resided. No matter the make of car, the interface is the same. The icons along the bottom of the screen indicate Navigation, Phone, Home (Google Now), Audio, and Return – to go back to the car's native interface. The first four options represent much of what we use our phones for (we'll get to texting in a second), and that's what buyers want: for cars to work seamlessly with their phones. Oh, and to have voice recognition actually be useful. Android Auto works with the Hyundai system, so if music is playing when you turn the car on, it will continue to play even though you're in Android Auto, and you can control it through that interface. Switching to media or apps on your phone is as easy as saying, "Play music," which defaults to Google Play, or pressing the audio button and choosing an app like JoyRide or NPR One. You do have to figure out how to speak to the system. I couldn't find any list of Android Auto-specific voice commands, so sometimes it would take a few tries to figure out how Google liked to be ordered around.

Hyundai reveals all-new Sonata in South Korea

We've seen the spy shots. We've seen the teasers. We've even seen the finished product uncovered in its home market. But now Hyundai has officially taken the wraps off its new Sonata, consistently one of its top sellers in North America that was surpassed only recently in the sales charts by the smaller, cheaper and slightly newer Elantra. It's Hyundai's challenger to the likes of the Toyota Camry, Honda Accord, Nissan Altima, Ford Fusion et al, which makes it a vital debut not only for Hyundai but for anyone in the market for a mid-size family sedan - and that's one of the biggest markets of all.
Set to be revealed at the New York Auto Show in a matter of mere weeks, the all-new 2015 Hyundai Sonata you see here is the latest representation of a more toned-down family design language which Hyundai calls Fluidic Sculpture 2.0, following the lead set by the new Genesis and away from the swoopy and sharply creased styling of the successful but stylistically divisive model it replaces. A good inch longer and wider than the outgoing Sonata, the new model is also over a third more rigid, thanks in no small part to the use of high-strength steel that now composes over half of the body's construction.
The all-new 2015 Hyundai Sonata follows the lead set by the new Genesis and away from the swoopy and sharply creased styling of the model it replaces.