Hyundai Genesis Named One of the Best New Cars of 2009

Hyundai Motor Company’s new luxury flagship Genesis has been named a “Best New Car of 2009” in About.com Cars' third annual Best New Car List. This marks the first time that a Hyundai vehicle has been recognised in the About.com Cars annual list.
About.com Cars highlighted Genesis’ notable luxury features, smooth and quiet ride, spacious interior and value. “This car would make the Best New Car List no matter who built it – but I just love the fact that it’s a Hyundai.” said Aaron Gold, Guide to Cars for About.com.
The About.com Cars Best New Car recognition continues to showcase the quality, performance, safety and value available with Genesis. The 2009 Genesis was recently awarded ‘2009 North American Car of the Year’ and was also named a ‘Top 5 Luxury Car for 2009’ by NADAguides.com. In addition, Genesis earned five-star crash test ratings for both front and side by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).
The Genesis is sold in North America with technology and features comparable to the world’s leading premium sports sedans at a value Mercedes and BMW can’t match.

Hyundai in Talks Surrounding Chrysler Purchase

Though GM halted its conquest plans, Korean automaker Hyundai Motor Company is reportedly talking with management at Chrysler LLC about a possible purchase.
While GM's talks were about absorbing Chrysler as a whole, it's rumored that Hyundai is interested mostly in Chrysler for the Jeep portfolio. Although it's possible that brand could be sold off to an interested party, Chrysler's overseers at Cerberus Capital Management have repeatedly said they're not looking to sell off the company in part.Hyundai, which currently sells two subcompact cars and a micro-truck as Dodges in Mexico, is said to be a better merger partner than GM was. Should a merger occur, Automotive News hypothesizes Hyundai could keep more of Chrysler's existing infrastructure and employees than GM could.That angle could be enough to sell the U.S. Government on financing the transaction, a stumbling block that helped doom the GM-Chrysler talks. If it isn't, Chrysler could have another avenue via Renault-Nissan. Though the Franco-Japanese conglomerate halted negotiations for Chrysler once the GM proposal broke, Automotive News claims Cerberus plans to restart the dialogue in the coming days.

Hyundai-Kia is world’s fifth largest automaker

The Hyundai-Kia Automotive Group has emerged as the world's fifth largest automaker with global sales of 3,961,629 units in 2007, moving up from sixth place in 2006, according to Automotive News' 2008 Global Market Data Book, says a release.

While quantitative growth has been an important objective in the past for the group, the company’s efforts are now focused on qualitative growth in terms of continuous improvement in corporate social responsibility, profitability, technological innovation and brand power. Hyundai-Kia has the momentum to keep on growing.

The group has seen remarkable growth in the four decades since Hyundai Motor Co was founded. It ranked as the world's eleventh largest automaker in 1999, the year Hyundai-Kia Chairman Chung Mong-Koo took over the helm as the CEO.

Counting the export sales of 185,114 complete knock-down kits which are assembled by overseas partners, the group's 2007 global sales reached 4,146,743 units. Automotive News’ methodology excludes CKD sales.


2007 Global sales rankings
Unit sales
Toyota Motor Corp.
9,366,000
General Motors
8,902,252
Volkswagen AG
6,191,618
Ford Motor Co.
5,964,000
Hyundai-Kia Automotive Group
3,961,629
Honda Motor Co. Ltd.
3,831,000
Nissan Motor Co.
3,675,574
PSA/Peugeot-Citroen SA
3,428,400
Chrysler LLC
2,676,268
Fiat S.p.A.
2,620,864