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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.