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88,000 interested in Hyundai Tucson fuel cell, first units due in 60 days

Hyundai thinks it has a hit on its hands with the Tucson Fuel Cell CUV, an Internet hit at the very least. At the Washington Auto Show this week, Michael O'Brien, the vice president of corporate and product planning for Hyundai Motor America, announced that 88,000 people have visited the car's microsite. Since the company isn't yet taking orders for the vehicle, we'll have to take this as a sign that people are interested in a hydrogen-powered CUV. "The response surprised even us," O'Brien said. "The response surprised even us" Hyundai expects to deliver the first Tucson Fuel Cell to a "small group" of customers in the US within 60 days, O'Brien said. As we learned last year, Hyundai will lease the CUV for $499 a month (and $2,999 down) for 36 months. That price includes as much hydrogen refueling as you like, plus Hyundai's Valet Maintenance. The Tucson Fuel Cell is already in production and available in other markets (as the ix35 Fuel Cell), following 16 years of development and what O'Brien said were "hundreds of millions of dollars" spent on R&D. Hyundai has tested its fuel cell cars for over 2.4 million miles, including extreme heat, cold and altitude tests (but it hasn't shot a bullet into the tank a la Toyota). Hydrogen cars are "as clean and by some measures cleaner than today's EVs" but are more practical, with longer range and shorter refueling times, O'Brien said in DC. There's more in the press release below. Hyundai Receives Strong Consumer Interest With 88,000 Visitors To Its Dedicated Fuel Cell Microsite In Just Two Months $499 per month to drive the World's First Mass-Produced Fuel Cell Vehicle, Including Unlimited Free Hydrogen Refueling and At Your Service Valet Maintenance WASHINGTON, Jan. 22, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Hyundai is witnessing exceptionally strong consumer interest in its next-generation Tucson Fuel Cell CUV, with more than 88,000 unique visitors to its Hyundai.com fuel cell microsite since the program's November introduction. Consumers selected for the program can drive the Tucson Fuel Cell for just $499 per month, which includes unlimited free hydrogen refueling and "At Your Service" valet maintenance at no extra cost. For the first time, retail consumers will be able to put a federally-certified hydrogen fuel cell vehicle in their driveways, with availability beginning in late Spring 2014 at select Southern California Hyundai dealers.

What do J.D. Power's quality ratings really measure?

Check these recently released J.D. Power Initial Quality Study (IQS) results. Do they raise any questions in your mind? Premium sports-car maker Porsche sits in first place for the third straight year, so are Porsches really the best-built cars in the U.S. market? Korean brands Kia and Hyundai are second and fourth, so are Korean vehicles suddenly better than their US, European, and Japanese competitors? Are workaday Chevrolets (seventh place) better than premium Buicks (11th), and Buicks better than luxury Cadillacs (21st), even though all are assembled in General Motors plants with the same processes and many shared parts? Are Japanese Acuras (26th) worse than German Volkswagens (24th)? And is "quality" really what it used to be (and what most perceive it to be), a measure of build excellence? Or has it evolved into much more a measure of likeability and ease of use? To properly analyze these widely watched results, we must first understand what IQS actually studies, and what the numerical scores really mean. First, as its name indicates, it's all about "initial" quality, measured by problems reported by new-vehicle owners in their first 90 days of ownership. If something breaks or falls off four months in, it doesn't count here. Second, the scores are problems per 100 vehicles, or PP100. So Power's 2015 IQS industry average of 112 PP100 translates to just 1.12 reported problems per vehicle. Third, no attempt is made to differentiate BIG problems from minor ones. Thus a transmission or engine failure counts the same as a squeaky glove box door, tricky phone pairing, inconsistent voice recognition, or anything else that annoys the owner. Traditionally, a high-quality vehicle is one that is well-bolted together. It doesn't leak, squeak, rattle, shed parts, show gaps between panels, or break down and leave you stranded. By this standard, there are very few poor-quality new vehicles in today's U.S. market. But what "quality" should not mean, is subjective likeability: ease of operation of the radio, climate controls, or seat adjusters, phone pairing, music downloading, sizes of touch pads on an infotainment screen, quickness of system response, or accuracy of voice-recognition. These are ergonomic "human factors" issues, not "quality" problems. Yet these kinds of pleasability issues are now dominating today's JDP "quality" ratings.

Did a US automaker blow the whistle on Hyundai, Kia fuel economy issue?

In all of the most hotly contested mainstream segments of the motoring universe, the difference of one mile per gallon averaged on a widow sticker can mean the difference between a sale and a walk-off - to say nothing of two or three mpg. So, when Hyundai and Kia were forced to reveal that many of their 40-mpg ratings were actually 38s and 37s, well, it made for big news.
It also, conceivably, made for a competitive disadvantage immediately, when the Korean automakers' products were being shopped versus the guys down the block. And it's that disadvantage that makes a recent story from Automotive News so juicy.
AN is reporting that Margo Oge, former head of the Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Transportation and Air Quality, got a tip in 2010 that Hyundai/Kia were "cheating" to get its impressive fuel economy numbers. The tip, said Oge (who retired from the EPA this past September), came from a senior vice president from a domestic automaker. The source was credible enough for Oge to launch an audit of the Hyundai figures, which ultimately lead to the debacle that we reported on a few months ago, and that the Korean company has been trying to bounce back from ever since.