By It amazes me that Hyundai wasn’t selling hybrid cars earlier in Korea considering the nation’s high oil prices?:
Hyundai has recently touted how its cars are finally a match for those from Japan and Germany. Now it has a hybrid car.
Reuters reports that Hyundai introduced the Elantra LPI on Wednesday in South Korea. Unlike conventional hybrids (the Toyota Prius and the Honda Insight), the Hyundai has a liquid-petroleum gas engine (with a 1.6-liter displacement) mated to its electric motor. The motor runs on a lithium-ion battery pack.
Americans don’t often hear about liquid petroleum gas. Automakers don’t sell vehicles that use it in the United States, though aftermarket companies offer conversions. According to the Department of Energy, liquid petroleum gas “is a mixture of several gases that is generally called ‘propane,’ in reference to the mixture’s chief ingredient.” Around 350,000 vehicles in the United States, mostly trucks and fleet vehicles, operate on liquid petroleum.
The Elantra LPI gets about 41 miles for every gallon of liquid petroleum gas, and according to Hyundai, the car meets California’s Super Ultra Low Emission Vehicle standard. Autocar reports that the Elantra LPI will cost about $16,250.
Hyundai has no plans for exporting the Elantra LPI, which will be limited to about 7,500 units this year (and double that in 2010). Hyundai said it would introduce its first gas-electric hybrid, based on the Sonata sedan, in the second half of 2010. [New York Times]
It looks like a pretty nice for $16,000 + and 41 miles to the gallon. It will be interesting to see if this high mileage hybrid catches on with the South Korean public.
Thanks I got fixed.
4:35 pm on July 13th, 2009 1
Maybe a good car, but still very ugly.
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4:35 pm on July 13th, 2009 2
Hyundai hasn’t sold these cars before for the simple fact that they were late getting into the hybrid game. Four or five years ago while Toyota and Honda already were selling hybrids, Hyundai just started their R&D. Unfortunately, there is little evidence that Koreans are particularly responsive to fuel prices when they choose a car or SUV. Whether this is the result of them having their heads up the status monkey’s ass or simple ignorance I don’t know. Last summer there was a brief spike in small car buying but that faded as oil prices receded. The end result is that small, fuel efficient cars are just as unpopular here as they are in North America. Contrast that with Japan where fuel efficiency is the norm. That said this country is a perfect place for hybrids. Most traffic moves at a crawl in the urban areas with long periods of time idling in traffic jams. Unlike at home there are few stretches of open road where the function of a hybrid engine is redundant; unlike say most of Canada and the United States.
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5:43 pm on July 13th, 2009 3
Dr. Yu,
You said it. Korean cars keep getting technically better and esthetically worse.
Despite the ugliness of the latest Avante (Elantra) abomination, I would still consider buying one of these things.
I have a big motor and PWM controller that I have picked up free from closed factories. Once I get some free (or cheap) batteries, I will be (illegally) converting an old Avante to electric for city use.
People have been making very good DIY plug-in electrics since the 70s and, with the Internet, all the information is there to do it yourself.
Funny how the big companies can’t seem to get it together… makes me think something else is at play.
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July 13th, 2009 at 7:39 pm
Chick,
While in England I washed dishes in the kitchen of many fine restaurants and the more I tried English food the more I got convinced that cooks in England go to cooking school to learn how to make food taste bad or simply nothing.
I thing that`s the same principle behind Korean cars aesthetic, because the more they make them look unattractive or weird the more they think it`s good. Look at Genesys and Equus for instance, such a nice cars but they look like 3rd world class cars.
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5:54 pm on July 13th, 2009 4
I saw a brief mention once on TV about the Japanese developing a hybrid that generated some power through an elaborate braking system designed for the stop-n-go traffic in Japanese cities. I thought that was a great idea and would eventually catch on in Korea, but I didn’t hear anything more about it…
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July 13th, 2009 at 7:27 pm
Koreans don’t care about efficiency but status. If they have money they want to buy a car that shines and makes other envy you. When I bought my first car I wanted a small and economic car, but my friends didn’t allowed me because they said a lawyer has to drive an expensive car, so …. I bought a littler bit more expensive car (Fiat Brava).
If you buy a car that generates its own energy Koreans will thing you are poor and that’s bad for business, marriage and so on.
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July 13th, 2009 at 8:06 pm
This is the same thing I’ve encountered: Your car is for the purpose of making others envy you. A big black sedan is the ideal.
I live very close to my office — five minutes’ drive in ideal conditions (fifteen in traffic, twenty by walking). When I bought a Matiz to shuttle my happy self to and from work, you would have thought I’d stopped wearing pants or something.
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July 13th, 2009 at 8:24 pm
My hybrid uses this technology called regenerative braking. Every time you brake it charges the batteries in the car. It works great on my Ford.
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6:25 pm on July 13th, 2009 5
The other reason they haven’t started is the fact the Hyundai has their hands in the gas station business. That would cut profits and they already have the market share on vehicles anyway. Why build it when SSangyong is going down the drain, they already own Kia, and Daewoo is attached to GM. Samsung is no real competition either as they only deal in sedans. So the only real competition is from BIG (Merc, BMV, Lexus) foriegn cars and few of them are hybrids.
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7:00 pm on July 13th, 2009 6
USinKorea,
Regenerative braking… not really elaborate.
In its most simple form, when you stop sending power to the motor, it becomes a generator that takes power from the moving vehicle, slowing it down, and sends it back to the battery… not unlike the drag when you downshift a manual transmission… although, in that case, the energy is lost and not stored.
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12:47 am on July 14th, 2009 7
Half-assed. Completely and absolutely half-assed. Unbelievable.
It is a mild hybrid…
…meaning it never runs in full electric mode… the electric motor is kind of a glorified starter so the engine can shut off while breaking, coasting or sitting at a stoplight.
There is no regenerative braking, no quiet electric driving, little benefit to plugging it in for a recharge (after the obligatory modification… as car companies insist “the technology isn’t ready yet”).
Basically, it is an ugly-ass Avante with a little bit more fuel efficiency in exchange for a whole bunch of expensive systems to break… systems that Car Center Ajushi has no idea how to fix.
I was already planning on dropping by a Hyundai dealership this afternoon and seeing if I could get one.
Now… not so much.
Disappointment only scratches the surface. Irritation and the hope some Hyundai executives die in a low carbon emission fire are right below it.
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