The vice president of Hyundai Motor Group, which owns Hyundai and has a 33% stake in Kia, is a designer. At this point, all aspects of Korea know that appearance is important—sometimes at the expense of other things.

Very true, and as turbo-corolla mentioned, it’s a bigger upgrade in comparison to the V6 it’s replacing. However, I don’t know that many consumers will think in terms of percentage difference; absolutes tend to be easier to deal with.

The EPA released the MPG estimates for the new QX...50 (?) with the VC-T, and at 24/30 with AWD, it only has 1-3mpg over competitors. Maybe it’ll significantly outperform those estimates, but the preliminary figures hardly seem to have been worth all the effort and hype.

I just don’t understand Hyundai’s reluctance in using or even offering their better engines. The 1.4t in the Elantra Eco seems to offer better fuel economy AND acceleration than the 2.0, yet that’s the only North American model in which it’s offered, and it’s a relatively rare car, at least here in the northeast.

...Why does it look so similar to the Kia Niro, aside from the front? Seems like a pretty major mistake.

Question: does this change with hybrid vehicles?

I’ve been directing my mother to buy a hybrid for her next purchase because she’s not the kind of driver who drives her cars hard, and most of her driving (as with many of us) is within a 5-mile city-drive from home.

Note, though, that it really isn’t just a trim package. An IRS, the 1.6 turbo, and the DCT and manual are all pieces that the other Elantra versions don’t have.

Can we all just admit that deinstitutionalization failed? A lot of homeless people have just been down on their luck for too long, fucked over by a system which puts on airs about being democratic and then promptly doesn’t give a shit about anyone without large quantities of money. However, a lot of other homeless…

From my time-wasting studies of weird engines, I’ve read (also on Wikipedia) that the engine was abandoned due to balance and timing issues. Apparently, a three-bank engine is a complicated thing, even if it’d be an actual W engine, instead of the double-V like VW ended up making.

Yes, but because they were all (except Singapore and Hong Kong) built around cars, the pedestrian landscape isn’t as pleasant, and the intensiveness of automotive infrastructure means that having a car is hugely helpful/necessary, removing rail travel from the primacy it has in much of Japan. Certainly, they’re all…

There is a medium between Tokyo shitbox shoebox apartment and America McMansion megashitbox.

It’s important to remember that most of these regional commuter systems in Japan are owned by companies which can develop real estate around their stations. That means apartments, department stores, office space, etc. Japan is built around trains like the U.S. is built around cars. In any sufficiently large Japanese…

The pursuit of authenticity only leads to endless No-True-Scottsmen and strawman debates. We’re already so far down Fake Lane, why not embrace it?

And! It was a subcompact available as a WAGON. In America! Unfathomable.

Well, the alternative is to actually change the way people think about cars, which seems to be outside the power of everyone except advertising agencies. You’re not wrong in that it is kind of useless in a sense, but just like stereotypes exist for a reason, being able to play into people’s preexisting thought…

Don’t know where you read they based it off the previous Pacifica, but you clearly didn’t read what I (or they) said. It’s based off of the reliability ratings and ratings history of the rest of the brand. I’m not necessarily defending it, but we all know that non-car people judge cars by brand, and CR is trying to…

If you actually have a subscription to Consumer Reports, or look at their magazines, you’ll see that they generally ascribe reliability ratings to brand new models with an asterisk, indicating that it’s predicted reliability as determined by reliability history of previous models (if any) and of a brand’s other…

I don’t know why so many have been slow to adopt this change. If memory serves, BMW’s been doing this since the introduction of the previous generation 7-Series in...2009? Why isn’t everyone doing this on all of their now-numerous turbocharged V engines?

But that’s the point. For many (most?) people, price is paramount; the quality of the car doesn’t (can’t?) matter. That then begs the question of why they don’t just buy something cheaper, used, but as another poster said, for some people it’s new or nothing. It’s an especially nonsensical position considering how…

I’ve always wondered how NYC managed that. It’s the only city in the world that keeps most of (all of?) its metro open 24/7. Even most other cities which have some 24-hour service only offer it on some lines, instead of the whole network. Notably, none of the major East Asian metropolises with large populations and…