Yahoo Autos Aaron Robinson: Can We Please Get a Little More Honda and Mazda Out of Hyundai?
Japanese auto execs have a lot of reasons to line up for Alka-Seltzer these days, but nothing causes them heartburn like Korea, by which I mean Hyundai and Kia, two quasi-independent companies operating under one roof. The Hanguk duo is taking mouthfuls of market share in the U.S., much of it out of the hides of the same Japanese companies that took it out of the hides of the Detroit Big Three so many layoffs and downsizings ago.
Both the compact and mid-size classes have been tossed on their ears by new vehicles from Hyundai and Kia. Compared with the waxed-windsock look of the new Hyundai Sonata and its mechanical clone, the Kia Optima, the Honda Accord and Toyota Camry look, respectively, like a refrigerator and a washer-dryer. And how do you think Nissan’s product planners felt upon seeing the new Hyundai Elantra? The Elantra is wavy and modern, with a wrestler’s stance and a luxury-car cabin. The new Nissan Versa looks like a pastiche of various taxis you’d see from a Beirut street corner circa 1995.
This could be a column about how the Japanese fumbled just six yards short of the goal line of total domination, but credit must be given where it has been earned. While others have been fatally cautious, especially in design, Hyundai and Kia have been fearless, even bucking criticism in their hyperconservative home market.
Apparently, Koreans think the new design language is too flamboyant. But as they have so often throughout history, Americans are responding well to audacity. Going into December, the Sonata had booked 209,000 sales in 2011, up 15 percent from 2010. The Elantra followed closely behind at 173,000, a 45-percent jump.
With 17 active nameplates in its showrooms (plus a few lame-duck leftovers), Hyundai-Kia’s year-to-date sales trailed those of the 17 nameplates in Honda-Acura’s dealerships by only 5027 units. And the trade rags reported that on December 1, Hyundai’s inventory of cars stood at 28 days, less than half the industry average of 61.
It’s an enviable position to be in, but it’s just a good start, as there’s lots of work left to do before Hyundai-Kia will be world-class.
First, it needs to resolve Kia’s enigmatic image. Despite pitching itself as young and adventurous, Kia can’t be defined by anyone in our office as peddling anything but Hyundais with altered styling and badges. If Kia’s mission is merely to sell Hyundais in different wrappers, it will follow Oldsmobile, Plymouth, and Mercury to the fate awaiting all divisions whose raison d’être was incremental volume.
If Kia is the youthful, sporty department, Hyundai should give it the youthful, sporty cars, such as the Veloster. The Nissan Juke should have been a Kia, too, as well as the Subaru BRZ and the Scion iQ. All of them are edgy and experimental, and they give legitimacy to any brand that claims to be so. Conversely, Kia’s identity, already muddled by the late Amanti neo-Buick, would only be further confused if the brand gets a $40,000 version of the Genesis, something Kia is strongly hinting at with its recent GT concept.
Finally, no Korean car will have enthusiast credibility until it can truly handle. In a Hyundai-Kia, the steering often has weird, artificial weighting; the suspensions are either too soft or jaw-jangling firm; and potholes send waves of reverb through the structure. Drive the new Elantra over railroad tracks and then drive the new Ford Focus to remind yourself that a well-sorted car’s floors don’t flutter over bumps. Though some Hyundai-Kias are decent to drive, none is truly class-leading in the dynamics department.
Culture is against the company. Korea arrived late to the motorized age, and the automobile still serves the role of a bland appliance there. To change that, Hyundai-Kia needs infrastructure, starting with a better test track. The small circuit at its U.S. proving ground in California’s Mojave Desert is mostly flat, with no camber changes and a bunch of dull, constant-radius turns linking short straights. It produces copious tire squeal but teaches nothing about body stability over pitching pavement or behavior in fast transitions.
Even if Team Korea builds a good track, the company must know how to use it. Setting roll centers, selecting bushing durometers, and knowing how to elegantly reinforce a structure without piling on weight are industry black arts. Soichiro Honda and his engineers weren’t born knowing how to do it, either, which is why,
in 1965, Honda produced many thousands of tiny, forgettable cars, plus the RA272 F1 racer with a transverse-mounted and fuel-injected 1.5-liter V-12.
For decades, Mr. Honda enhanced his company’s expertise and esprit de corps by circulating engineers through racing programs, exposing them to moonshot technology, and daring them with difficult goals. Hyundai-Kia needs to do the same if it hopes to ever build a car that steers better than so-so. Do it like Mazda, but with Honda’s ironclad quality, and greatness will follow.
Plus, as Bob Hall, one of the men behind the original Miata noted recently, no car company ever lost a sale because its vehicles handle too well.
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