2006 Hyundai Tiburon Gt Powermnroof98,945miles 6speed2.7ltr V6 Airconditioning on 2040-cars

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Recharge Wrap-up: Tesla battery degradation graphed, Hyundai plans fuel cell hub in Korea

A man has created a graph of Tesla Model S battery degradation over time. Merijn Coumans of Holland is tracking the owner data gathered on from Model S owners in a single file and graphing it visually. Coumans continually updates the graph of drivers' maximum ranges to give a look at battery degradation over the life of the car. Coumans tracks mileage and even number of visits to Superchargers in his data. Tesla provides an eight-year battery guarantee regardless of mileage. Read more at the Steinbuch blog. US plug-in vehicle sales are expected to surpass 300,000 when the data is tallied at the end of this month. That is 30 percent of President Obama's goal of 1 million battery electric cars and plug-in hybrids by the end of 2015. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz admitted the US won't reach the goal, saying, "We're going to be a few years after the president's aspirational goal of the end of 2015, but I think that we are within a few years of reaching that goal." Green car analyst Alan Baum projects the 1 million EV milestone will be met in 2018. Read more at Hybrid Cars. Hyundai and the South Korean government plan to create a hub for fuel cell technologies. Hyundai and Kia will give up unused patents to automotive startups focused on fuel cells at a recently launched innovation center in Gwangju. "Hyundai Motor will offer substantial assistance in the whole process of corporate growth ranging from the development of ideas to industrialization to making inroads into global markets," says South Korea's President Park Geun-hye. Hyundai hopes this will make the city a center for hydrogen technology. Read more at Just Auto. Mayor Boris Johnson has approved a cycling superhighway for the city of London. Set to be built along the Thames embankment, the system of cycling lanes could help encourage more people to ride their bikes, reducing automotive traffic congestion and relieving pressure on other transit networks. Opponents are upset that the cycling highway will increase driving time across the city, and call cyclists a "loud minority," whose numbers doesn't justify the new lanes. Read more at Treehugger. Kansas and Nebraska are joining the challenge against the EPA's new ethanol emissions rules. The EPA's Moves2014 regulations seek to reduce automotive sulfur emissions by 60 percent, but, says Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt, the ethanol emissions measurement model is faulty and was adopted without public comment or review.

Hyundai recalling 140k Sonatas over seatbelts

Hyundai is recalling about 140,000 examples of the 2015 Sonata in North America to repair a problem with the front passenger seatbelt not latching. Specifically, the problem affects 129,000 of the sedans in the US and 10,401 in Canada. On these models, if the seatbelt tongue is forcibly inserted into the buckle at a certain angle, then it can jam and not latch. Only the front passenger side is affected, and driver would be notified because a warning light would illuminate on the dashboard. The safety campaign covers 2015 Sonatas with production dates between April 25 and December 4, 2014, according to a statement to Autoblog from Hyundai, but there are no reports of injuries from this issue. Owners will receive notification by mail in about a month. To fix the problem, dealers will inspect the part and repair or replace it as necessary. Hyundai has already notified NHTSA about the recall, but the campaign hasn't been added to the agency's website yet. Transport Canada has already posted some information about it, though. Related Video: Hyundai Statement: We recently notified NHTSA of a safety recall we are initiating in the U.S. to repair or replace the front passenger seat belt buckle in approximately 129,000 2015 Sonatas that were built beginning April 25, 2014 through December 4, 2014. We are initiating this action to ensure the safety and quality of the vehicles and the continued satisfaction of our customers. In some cases, if the front passenger seat belt "tongue" is inserted into the buckle forcibly at an angle, the buckle may jam, preventing the front passenger from fastening the seat belt. The front passenger's seat belt warning lamp will illuminate if the front passenger seat belt is not buckled while the seat is occupied. This condition does not result in partial latching of the belt and does not affect the driver or rear passenger seat belt buckles. There are no reports of injuries attributed to this condition.

Sonata, Elantra driving down Hyundai quality scores

Hyundai was the butt of many jokes in the auto industry when it first entered the US market, but since then, it has forged ahead and built cars that stand with the best in their respective segments. The 2011 Sonata and 2011 Elantra were seen as the apotheosis of the brand's forward progress when they were introduced, but falling J.D. Power and Associates Dependability Study results may actually cause them to hurt the company's hard-earned reputation.
J.D Power's study examines three-year-old vehicles for problems per 100 vehicles. Since the 2011 study for 2008 model year cars, Hyundai has fallen from 10th overall with 132 problems to 27th in the 2014 survey of 2011 model year vehicles with 169 problems. It was also Hyundai's second consecutive year of an increase in reported problems. According to Automotive News, many of these problems are due to faults with the Sonata and Elantra, but J.D. Power didn't identify specifically what issues caused Hyundai's dependability to tumble so far down the list. However, the study found that, on average, reliability fell throughout the industry for the first time since 1998.
Getting the Sonata and Elantra right are vital to Hyundai. In 2013, they were the company's best-selling cars. "We'll be closely going through the data to see where improvements need to be made. Hyundai's goal is nothing short of quality leadership, and the report shows we have work to do," Hyundai spokesperson Jim Trainor said in an email to Autoblog.