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Hyundai and Kia will offer AI assistants in 2019 cars

Hyundai and Kia both have reputations as early adopters of in-car tech, and that's truer than ever now that voice assistants are becoming a practical reality on the road. The Korean automakers have revealed that they plan to include AI assistants in their new cars starting from 2019, with every vehicle being "connected" by 2025. As Hyundai explained, they've been working with SoundHound to create an Intelligent Personal Agent (based on Houndify) that both makes proactive suggestions (such as reminding you of a meeting) and offers remote control of both your car and your home. This sounds a whole lot like what other voice assistants do, but the car brands are counting on support for "multiple-command recognition" as the ace up their sleeve. If you tell your car to check the weather and turn on the lights at the same time, it'll do both instead of scratching its head like so many other AI helpers. You won't have to wait until 2019 to see the technology in action. Hyundai will unveil Intelligent Personal Agent at CES 2018, and it'll test a "simplified" take on the Agent in hydrogen fuel cell cars slated to drive on South Korean roads throughout the year. It's hard to say if IPA will have an advantage over companies borrowing "off-the-shelf" AI like Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant, but it's more the ubiquity that will be important -- you won't have to buy a premium-priced model to treat your car like a smart home hub.Reporting by Jon Fingas for Engadget.Related Video: Image Credit: Hyundai Auto News CES Hyundai Kia Technology Emerging Technologies CES 2018

Provo concept name has Kia embroiled in terrorism controversy?

In the relatively lengthy press release that Kia composed for the launch of its Provo concept car at the Geneva Motor Show this week, the company never mentioned where the name came from, or what it means for the car. A very basic web search for "Provo" reveals that the inspiration for the hatch could have been a city in Utah, a township in South Dakota or a village in Bosnia. The name could be a reference to either an American (Fred) or Canadian (Dwayne) football player, and Provo might also accurately reference a "Dutch counterculture movement in the mid-1960s" or a ship in the US Navy. More likely than any of those, however, is that the Kia designers of the concept - a car that was wholly a product of the Korean automaker's design studios in Frankfurt, for the record - meant it as a play on the existing Pro_cee'd hatchback.
What the designers and Kia executives that signed off on the Provo almost certainly did not have in mind was a reference to a street name for the Provisional Irish Republican Army. That "Provo" was, according to TheDetroitBureau.com, an outlawed army faction that was blamed for some 2,000 deaths in Northern Ireland during a period stretching from 1970 to 1997.
And yet, it was that association that led Gregory Campbell, a member of parliament from Northern Ireland, to introduce legislation that would ban Kia from selling a car under the name Provo. Kia, quick to realize the sizable gaffe it has stumbled into with the name, has reportedly already promised not to use the name for a production vehicle.

Hyundai and Kia to hit record 8M sales for 2014

Hyundai and Kia are on a sales charge in 2014, and parent company Hyundai Motor Group is increasing projections to a record eight million combined units for the automakers by the end of the year – a bump over the original target of 7.86 million vehicles. According to Bloomberg, the key to the growth is beating expectations in Brazil, China and India, and strong crossover sales are also helping the bottom line. In the US, both automakers are doing well this year. In October, Hyundai saw a six percent dip in monthly sales, but through the first 10 months it sold 607,539 vehicles, compared to 601,773 at this point last year. Kia has done even better with 489,711 units sold from January to October, versus 456,137 for the period in 2013. The good news is a welcome antidote to negative headlines like investors' anger over Hyundai's $10 billion land purchase in Seoul, South Korea. The two automakers also had to pay a $300 million penalty to the Environmental Protection Agency for misstating fuel economy on some models. While sales may reach a new record, profits might not grow as much with them. The strong Korean won means that Hyundai and Kia have a tougher time keeping up profit margins compared to Japanese competitors with a weaker yen.