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New Genesis G80 costs $2,650 more than its predecessor

If you're in the market for a Hyundai Genesis, you'd best act fast. The Korean company's new luxury sub-brand, Genesis, just announced pricing for the rebadged G80, kicking the starting figure up across the board while adding a suite of desirable safety and tech features. The base model, with a 3.8-liter V6 and rear-wheel drive, starts at $41,400. All-wheel drive adds $2,500 to that figure, while both V6 models add $2,650 to the price of a Hyundai-badged Genesis sedan. Hyundai justifies the increase with a slew of now-standard equipment from the current car's discontinued Tech Package, including automatic emergency braking, blind-spot monitoring with cross-traffic alert, lane keeping assist, lane departure warning, high-beam assist, and adaptive cruise control. Considering the Tech Package tallied $3,500, this is a net win. You can improve your six-cylinder G80 with a pair of packages. A $4,750 Premium Package adds fog lights, a panoramic sunroof, a 14-speaker Lexicon stereo, a seven-inch color instrument display, vented front seats, and a power sunscreen for the rear window. Genesis essentially carried over the current $3,500 Ultimate Package, which now costs $4,200. It includes matte wood, full-color HUD, 9.2-inch touchscreen infotainment, a 17-speaker Lexicon stereo, and a power trunk lid, along with an upgraded power driver's seat, which used to be part of the Tech Pack. If you're hankering for the V8 model – no longer listed on the Hyundai USA consumer page – you're looking at a $650 bump, from $53,850 to $54,550. There are no option packs for the V8, so all you need to do is pick a color and drive away. Not surprisingly, the G80 undercuts its rivals by a few dollars. BMW will happily sell you a base 5 Series for $51,195. Mercedes offers an E-Class, the E300, at $53,075. Audi and Lexus are slightly more down to earth – an Audi A6 is $47,125 while a base GS is $46,595. So, going with the V6 G80 against its all-four-cylinder-turbo competition will save you, on average, around $8,100. That makes the $8,950 in option packs look awfully attractive. The difference between the G80 V8 and its rivals is smaller, but still significantly stacked in Genesis' favor, mainly because only BMW still offers a V8 in this segment – it's $67,295 ($12,745 more than a base G80 V8). Pricing on the US market 2017 E-Class is only available for the 2.0-liter, turbocharged E300, while neither Lexus nor Audi sell a V8 outside their respective high-performance brands.

YouTube tallies votes for this year's top five Super Bowl spots [w/video]

When we asked you to tell us which of this year's 16 car-themed Super Bowl commercials you liked best, you chose the Farmer commercial from Chrysler Group, advertising the Ram trucks, over Audi's Prom commercial in second place. Turns out the voters in YouTube's Ad Blitz poll agreed, voting the same commercial to the number one spot from among the field commercials in every category.
From there, however, they went in a totally different direction. Budweiser's The Clydesdales spot came second, Samsung's The Next Big Thing took third. The Jeep Whole Again ad scored fourth in the YouTube poll, fifth in our poll of auto commercials, and the Hyundai Team spot got fifth from the YouTubers, but ninth in our poll.
The voting results don't match up with the viewing numbers, though - while Farmer has more than 13 million views, The Next Big Thing is well beyond 21 million. You can read the press release below and see all five spots, lined up for you, one more time.

Hyundai details its five Super Bowl ads, Santa Fe is MVP [w/video]

If the Super Bowl were Las Vegas, Hyundai would be considered one of its whales. The South Korean automaker will be advertising for the sixth straight year during The Big Game, and this time it's rolling up with five spots, four of them new. The new 2013 Santa Fe gets the star treatment, featuring in three of the spots, but the theme throughout is using "a Hyundai vehicle as the ultimate sidekick and partner-in-fun."
The four brand new commercials are:
Epic PlayDate - the headliner, uses the Santa Fe for "an unforgettable and epic play date" and features a brand new song from "a legendary alternative rock band."