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Hyundai delivers its first Tucson Fuel Cell to a California customer

With expected pomp and circumstance, but short of a marching band, Hyundai delivered its first Tucson Fuel Cell crossover to the Bush family in Southern California on Tuesday. Dave Zuchowski, president and chief executive officer of Hyundai Motor America, was on hand to officiate along with an array of other government officials, including California Air Resources Board chairman Mary Nichols. The automaker is touting the emissions-free vehicle as the "world's only mass-produced fuel cell vehicle" as it travels down the same assembly line as the other Tucson models - its production is scalable, based on demand.
The Tucson Fuel Cell replaces the standard model's 2.4-liter, four-cylinder, gasoline combustion engine with a 100-kW fuel cell stack, which sends power to a 100-kW (134 horsepower and 221 pound-feet of torque) electric motor driving the front wheels. A 24-kW battery pack, shared with the Hyundai Sonata Hybrid, is used for storage. The vehicle earns the customer a combined 50 MPGe, while earning the automaker up to $130,000 through California's ZEV credit system.
As the hydrogen refueling infrastructure is extremely underdeveloped, Hyundai will initially only offer the Tucson Fuel Cell on a lease program to customers in the Los Angeles/Orange County areas, where it has approved six stations with the 700-bar (WEH TK17 pistol-grip nozzle) pumps. The automaker has packaged the program with a $2,999 drive-off, with payments of $499 per month for 36 months. To nearly eliminate operating expenses, the automaker is throwing in "unlimited free hydrogen refueling" (keep in mind that the leasee is only contracted to 12,000 miles each year, so that will put a cap on how much free fuel flows from the pump) along with the company's At Your Service Valet Maintenance at no extra cost.

Hyundai readying Juke rival with 'edgy, dynamic styling' for 2017

Love it or hate it, the Nissan Juke has drawn attention to itself and to its maker. Little wonder, then, that Hyundai wants to follow a similar formula.
According to our compatriots over at Edmunds, Hyundai has a whole raft of new products in the works - as you'd expect from the world's fourth-largest automaker - including replacements for the current Tucson and Elantra sometime next year, but also a subcompact crossover to target the Juke, not to mention tiny softroading rivals like the forthcoming Chevrolet Trax. Details at this point are few and far between, but it appears Hyundai is committed to making it as zany as the Nissan it will target. The Korean automaker revealed the Curb concept (pictured above) along similar lines at the 2011 Detroit Auto Show.
Hyundai Motor America CEO Dave Zuchowski tells Edmunds not to expect a mini Tuscon, but to "Think of maybe something that looks like a Juke or something that has edgy, dynamic styling." Considering how off-the-map Hyundai went with the Veloster and its unconventional array of doors, we know the Korean automaker can think outside the box for this Gen-Y crossover. Whether the edge tiny CUV market has space for more than the Juke, however, is another matter. One way or another, look for the tiny Korean crossover to arrive sometime in 2017.

2014 Hyundai Veloster Turbo R-Spec loses creature comforts, gains sporting equipment [UPDATE]

Hyundai unveiled the Veloster Turbo R-Spec at the LA Auto Show yesterday, and it's touted as a high-performance model without some of the standard features usually found on the Veloster Turbo, such as proximity-key entry with push-button start, premium gauge cluster, side-repeater mirrors, driver's auto-up window, high-gloss interior trim and heated leather seats.
Like the other three R-Spec models Hyundai has released (Genesis Coupe 2.0T R-Spec, Genesis Coupe 3.8 R-Spec and Genesis 5.0 R-Spec), the Veloster Turbo R-Spec skimps on interior appointments to keep the price down. But Hyundai thinks that people who buy it don't want that equipment anyway, and would rather install aftermarket goodies. The car is priced at $22,110 (including the $810 destination fee), which makes it the least expensive Veloster Turbo model.
The pared-down hatchback's special features include R-Spec-specific sport suspension, retuned steering and a B&M short-shifter for the six-speed manual transmission (the R-Spec isn't offered with an automatic). That's all great, but we can do without the red-accented side skirts and front splitter, which look just as tacky in person as they do in pictures.