As Hyundai celebrates the selection of Kona and Kona Electric its smallest SUV as 2019 North American Utility Vehicle of the Year for its steadfast performance, design excellence, all round safety, it comes as no big surprise as Hyundai’s engineering marvels have caught the eye of the critics on more than one occasion. Quality and workmanship are given high importance at Hyundai and innovation in bringing about better fuel economy and reduced emissions with each release are prime concerns of Hyundai’s engineers. We could think of no better place than Petaluma Hyundai dealership to get an insider perspective and list out at least 5 engineering tricks of Hyundai that make it the segment leader it is.
Blue-Drive
Before we dive into the engineering perspectives its worth mentioning that this Korean automaker combines simple innovations with technological interventions to work around any challenges and make their task easier. One such trick they deploy is use of advanced navigation available through a telematics service – the Hyundai Blue Link that provides drivers with the most optimized routes available that are energy efficient and goes on up to using regenerative braking to utilize otherwise wasted power to stretch the mileage. Using the Blue Drive technology in their Fuel Cell vehicles Hyundai aims to achieve emission reduction to rock bottom level with only water as the residue.
Hyundai SmartSense
Hyundai SmartSense takes safety and convenience to an all-new level. Safe Exit Assist is one of the most useful in this suite of technologies where the vehicle keeps tabs on the road using milli-wave radars while the passengers alight and won’t allow the safety latch on the door to be deactivated if any approaching vehicles are detected. Its available on two of its popular models – the 2019 Santa Fe and 2019 Elantra. Lane Keep Assist is another feature that’s part of this which if enabled can warn and even prevent lane changes taking place without using the indicators.
Gasoline Direct Injection (GDI)
Hyundai was quick to adopt GDI technology in its vehicles and its Gamma 1.6L 4-cylinder GDi engine has set a benchmark in the automotive industry by achieving an estimated highway mileage of up to 40 mpg and lowered emission levels at the same time without compromising on power and performance.
EcoShift – Dual Clutch Transmission
Till recent times, Dual Clutch Transmission was the domain of premium vehicles. Hyundai’s engineers innovatively adopted this and created in-house, a 7-speed version that allows drivers to shift between both manual and automatic modes without losing traction. This system has proven itself and boasts of better fuel-efficiency of up to 20% over the 6-speed automatics.
Connected Convenience using BlueLink
The tech guys at Hyundai dealer Petaluma were eager to show us the use of this innovative engineering trick in the Hyundai vehicles using the available BlueLink service. Current day Hyundai’s come fitted with amazing services such as Apple CarPlay and Android Auto that already give you a range of connected services, but BlueLink takes this a notch higher by utilizing mobile connectivity to remotely access your vehicles features such as the climate control, car finder, destination selection and even pin verified lock / unlock of the doors through an app on your smartphone.
