Hyundai vs Honda

[Fobio]

No pics, just car talk...

So anyone notice the recent decline in Honda's automotive exposure? Pulling out of F1 and having Brawn GP kick ass left right and center is embarassing enough. And without prospect of the new NSX and diminished exposure in motorsport, you'd be hard-pressed to think that today's Honda is the same one that powered Ayrton Senna to F1 glory. The new Honda is looking a lot like the Toyota of about 10 yrs ago...big, non-sporting...family car oriented.

Then here comes Hyundai...shaking off its rick-shaw Asian small-car image with a honking V8 and now particpating in Formula D. By no means will Hyundai be able to match the engineering might of Honda, but it sure looks like it's catching up. The new Hyundai sure looks like the old Honda of about 15 yrs ago...improving building quality and reliability, while gaining market share...could a Hyundai F1/IRL/NASCAR effort be far behind?

So this is the new Honda...reseaching Asimo and perhaps one day, building giant mecha/Gundams to build space ships?

http://i.gizmodo.com/5212161/how-it-feels-to-walk-with-hondas-cyborg-legs?skyline=true&s=i

Progress is good! Everyone benefits...

[froggy]

yes I've noticed that as well. Hyundai seems to be filling that niche that honda evacuated when they killed the prelude, and turned the rsx, and si-r into compliant members of society. I haven't paid much attention to car racing in the last couple of months, but do they even have a factory entry in the sports car classes? I've also noticed the decline in their motorcycle influence. before everyone was talking about the cbr's and now they've fallen back to 5th behind ducatti, yamaha, kawasaki, and suzuki ( not neccesarily in that order). They seem more to be interested in the aging segment of society, by making their cars and bikes more plush. Honda's cruisers seem to be getting most of the attention from the factory.

[Fobio]

I'd agree as well. Despite all the attn automakers get in big-time auto racing series, Honda has always always had a top runner in the world of Super Bikes and such...not anymore.

Sign of falling sales: when car companies use hockey theme commercials to sell cars to CDN's...hehe...

Also, for the Torontonian's: SISLEY has always been associated with Honda's, I just heard a SISLEY Hyundai commercial on AM680 today...

[Malcolm991]

As for the Brawn GP, is that not Mercedes powered? Honda has never been a force in GP racing, at least to my knowledge this decade. Mercedes, Ferrari, BMW, Renault have been the main contenders! I dont think you will see much of an effort from Hyundai in these racing fields because they are so dominated by other car makers. Toyota is keeping up in Nascar and GP but I dont think they will be contending for the title! Hyundai has good product out on the streets, they have come along way!

[Fobio]

As for the Brawn GP, is that not Mercedes powered? Honda has never been a force in GP racing, at least to my knowledge this decade. Mercedes, Ferrari, BMW, Renault have been the main contenders! I dont think you will see much of an effort from Hyundai in these racing fields because they are so dominated by other car makers. Toyota is keeping up in Nascar and GP but I dont think they will be contending for the title! Hyundai has good product out on the streets, they have come along way!

Brawn GP is now MB powered, but it was the Honda F1 team before Honda decided to leave in 2009, middle/late of last/2008 F1 season. Mind you, Brawn started developing the current 2009 car mid-season in 2008, knowing full-well that Honda is pulling out. But even with Honda's factory efforts, the Honda F1 team never shined. The fact that without the might of Honda AND with MB power, Brawn has now won 2 GP out of the gates, speaks volumes about the capability of those cars/chassis.

Reliable MB power just seals the deal...

[3GFX]

Fobio...

You raise an excellent point. Hyundai has really stepped it up with the options of their cars. To be honest even the tiburon wasa great tuner car and their cars were always great value for money. Only now though has the quality become good enough for everyone to take them seriously.

Hyundai is going after niche markets where they can compete. The Genisis sedan being a great example of a car busting into the luxury market competing on price. Its worked. The coupe is the same idea, a car based on price. They've played it very smart with the two engine options as well. Buyers are not limited to one choice of engine and sacrifice performance. This lets them compete with Eclipses right up to G35s. Its a market strategy that opens a huge door and invited customers right in.

Hyundai will no doubt eventually start its own motorsports division. Now if that will come in the form of an in house tuning division such as AMG, BMW M, or RalliArt no one will know. I don't think that would be a wise strategy because that differentiates the model line to a degree and is not in the corporate plan. Its possible we will see strictly motorsports division that will build one off cars for the respective compeitition. If that technology will trickle down is another story.

I firmly believe that Hyundai is going the opposite way of the Ferrari model. Ferrari does motorsports and only sold cars to support their racing. Thus their road cars were originally just race cars. Similar more recent strategies are companies like BMW who had a motorsports division and then brought those technologies and adapted them to cars already in the model line up. This is how the M5 and M3 were born.

Hyundai will go the opposite, they will build good cars from the start and then just build a motorsports team from a good platform. Which arena is yet to be seen.

[Fobio]

Just so I'm being clear...we're not dissing or bashing Honda...heck, if I stayed in school long enough I would love to work for Honda, designing actuators, motors and sensors to make giant robots. Just that the change that Honda is going thru was subtle, but now, you can't help but see it staring at you in the face...

The Accord's, Civic's, Fit's, S2K's are still great cars, it just seems like Honda is moving away from the mainstream automotive business, leaving the budget Asian car niche to other players (TaTa Nano anyone?)...I don't know all of Honda's history, but with the recent developments, they are either leaving the old model for a new paradigm, OR getting back to its roots and focusing on personal 1-person transportation/mobility.

[3GFX]

S2K will be no more shortly :(

[Cardinal Fang]

The success of BrawnF1 (ie. Honda) today is my opinion is due to the rule changes. The cars have been so drastically changed since last year that everyone started from a new sheet of paper with the exception of the power plant. If we had the same cars as last year BrawnF1 would be at the back. The benefited from the rule changes and are rightly where they need to be for now.

That being said I'm saddened that Honda is not in F1. I always believed that F1 was a great place to showcase the individual car companies technology. The old saying that what gets developed here makes it onto our street cars was always true. Given the economic problems I can see how that suffered. I would think that Honda will still remain in motorsports just not at the high level we are used to seeing. They also gone to branding some Honda projects as Acura to elevate the profile of their luxury brand.

I do think Honda is changing their model. I think they have to because they are not the only players in certain markets.

[Unoriginalusername]

honda is one of the few existing mainstream auto companies to not run to the government for a bailout (i.e. toyota)... nothing wrong with managing their business well during tough times. Honda continues to pump out very reliable well built cars that are also very safe and I am sure will do well for a very long time.

My first car was a 2000 hyundai accent gsi, Hyundai's products are getting better but they are still for the most part very cheaply made, get worse mpg than competitors, make less hp than claimed, and are backed by many dealers that hired all the sketchy used car salesmen of yesteryear.

Their business strategy is to sell you a cheap car, and make up for that in lots of service charges and pressure etc. and have seen them take advantage of countless trusting victims.

they have come along way, but they still have a very far ways to go before being mentioned in the same breath as Honda. i've driven the new gen coupe and was impressed on many fronts until you look at the price.

[Fobio]

well, it's safe to say that today's Hyundai is not today's Honda, esp to us enthusiasts, but to the average consumer, they are both just relatively affordable Asian cars. The reliability and quality of Honda's are well-known and justifies the typical higher resale value compared to its competitors (ie. Civics vs MZ3's).

these same ppl who would've only considered Toyota/Honda/Mazda will now also consider a Hyundai...

side note: I forgot where I saw/heard this, but Mazda Canada has a 5% market share in Canada, while Mazda USA only has 2% of the US market share...but that's somehow enough to justify the support and marketing they do in the US, to the point of buying the naming rights to one of the most revered track, Leguna Seca.

[Scottobot]

My first car was a 2000 hyundai accent gsi, Hyundai's products are getting better but they are still for the most part very cheaply made, get worse mpg than competitors, make less hp than claimed, and are backed by many dealers that hired all the sketchy used car salesmen of yesteryear.

Their business strategy is to sell you a cheap car, and make up for that in lots of service charges and pressure etc. and have seen them take advantage of countless trusting victims.

I've actually had years of great experiences at Airport Hyundai in London (I actually *want* to buy a car from them), Lakeshore Hyundai in Etobicoke (never had better service anywhere.. except maybe Oakville Mazda :chuckle), and Burlington Hyundai. Attrell Hyundai in Brampton is another story, and they do represent everything that you said, and indeed everything that is bad about stealerships (I think I went so far as to refer to them as "vile criminals" in my letter to Hyundai of Canada).

Having said that, I'll say what I often do: my grandparents had a Sonata for around 13 years and loved it, my father's had one for about 5 years and loves his, I loved my 1999 Tiburon, and my wife loves her 2000 Tibby with 218,000 km on it. It still runs well, but now she wants either a new Tiburon, a Gen Coupe, or an RX-8 (if we win the lottery :)).

[froggy]

side note: I forgot where I saw/heard this, but Mazda Canada has a 5% market share in Canada, while Mazda USA only has 2% of the US market share...but that's somehow enough to justify the support and marketing they do in the US, to the point of buying the naming rights to one of the most revered track, Leguna Seca.

ok I agree remember 5% in canada works out to 75% of 30 million are in the car buying age 16+ (not the real number but work with me here) that is 22.5 million and 5% of that works out too 1.125 million

in the US 2% using the same numbers ( again not real but work with me) 75% of 300 million is 225 million and 2% of that is 4.5 million

now working with those numbers it's still quite significant the volume

[Fobio]

^^^ I agree with the above math that it is obvious that by shear numbers/volume, the USA buys a lot more Mazda's NET, than CDN's...my point tho is that eventho Mazda spends significantly less marketing the car to CDN's, we're more ready to be Mazda adopters than Americans AS A COUNTRY...true that they may have a more varied climate with more automobile choices, I still think Mazda to be doing surprisingly well in Canada considering...

the significantly higher percentage in Canada, has no doubt eaten into the Honda/Toyota/Nissan's market share...and back on topic, it almost seems like Honda is losing market share (I don't have the numbers) and it doesn't care about it. That part is what I find most interesting.

[froggy]

i think you can see why just by looking at the size of today's 4 door civic and the size of 92 accord. the new civic is almost the same size as that old accord they have grown the cars too much and are loosing that appeal as an affordable small easy to get into car. They have the fit but that's just not it

[Fobio]

i think you can see why just by looking at the size of today's 4 door civic and the size of 92 accord. the new civic is almost the same size as that old accord they have grown the cars too much and are loosing that appeal as an affordable small easy to get into car. They have the fit but that's just not it

+1

that's what I'm talking about. Honda can choose to make all kinds of cars they want, they just choose to make the current roster for a reason. and yeah, the Fit is not the same as the, dare I say, legendary Civics of the early 90's. this isn't the Honda I grew up knowing who pumped out, ITR's, Si/SiR's, S2K's, NSX's. I'm not pretending to know how to run an auto company as those were always rather niche products...prolly not as profitable as a bread and butter Pacific-mall fleet of accord and civics sprinkled with some fits.

and that's where Hyundai comes into...with some more out of the norm cars that Honda would've made in some other variant. the spice that made Honda what it was isn't there anymore, and they look a lot like Toyota, with the bland grocery getters...

someone above did mention something about the Acura branding and I agree, as they're concentrating their motorsports efforts on the Acura LMP in the ALMS. Which means, like Toyota/Lexus, they'll be realigning their premium products under the premium brand....which I suppose is what the Mazdaspeed product line with continued support should become in Canada. One can only hope...

[x_o_k_x]

i miss those early 90s civics... nothing compares these to computer packed cars these days

[howes]

Hyundai make an excellent product!

[silvermist99]

^^^ I agree with the above math that it is obvious that by shear numbers/volume, the USA buys a lot more Mazda's NET, than CDN's...my point tho is that eventho Mazda spends significantly less marketing the car to CDN's, we're more ready to be Mazda adopters than Americans AS A COUNTRY...true that they may have a more varied climate with more automobile choices, I still think Mazda to be doing surprisingly well in Canada considering...

the significantly higher percentage in Canada, has no doubt eaten into the Honda/Toyota/Nissan's market share...and back on topic, it almost seems like Honda is losing market share (I don't have the numbers) and it doesn't care about it. That part is what I find most interesting.

Us Canadians are more like Europeans in taste of cars, we like small cars/small suv and are willing to live with them which is what mazdas mostly have. Once you go south of the border its a different story, Americans have totally different car tastes. IE. Go to Michigan, there is close to 0 imports there (its always been like this even before the recession), go further south/central and its all giant SUVs. Honda wants a piece of that huge market by over sizing their civics/accords and hope to convert those giant SUV buyers to accord/civic/pilot/rdx/mdx owners. They are also taken into consideration that ex. civic/accord/CL owners are growing and starting families, which means they want larger & softer cars

[silvermist99]

forumla D genesis coupe drift car uses nissan VQ LOL
http://blogs.edmunds.com/straightline/2009/04/correction-hyundai-genesis-coupe-drift-car-using-nissan-engine.html

[Fobio]

good find...lol..

[condor888000]

Interesting, claims the engine just wasn't ready yet and will be powering the car as soon as it is ready.

[Fobio]

ok...so it's now widely known that all major Japanese auto-makers are scaling back their motorsports efforts, but as per Hyundai, a growing trend is different manufacturers sharing parts/platform, that are completely unrelated...such as an article from Turbo magazine regarding a S2K w/ KIA Sportage final drive and Mazda parts?!

http://www.turbomagazine.com/tech/0804_turp_kia_sportage_s2000_garage_tech/index.html

an excerpt:


It's no surprise that competing manufacturers rely on one another to engineer various components. It's been long rumored that Mazda has lent a helping hand to a number of big-name companies, including Honda and Kia. While these rumors have yet to be established and continue to be highly debated among automotive enthusiasts and Internet forums, we stumbled across an interesting find that would tie all three of these big automotive manufacturers together, namely their ring and pinion setups.

The biggest surprise of them all was finding out that Honda sourced the Mazda 7-inch rear for the Honda S2000. This doesn't necessarily mean you can simply bolt a Mazda rear end on your S2K and call it a day because of the difference in rear housing and axel designs. It seems Mazda has been sourcing out its gears to Honda S2Ks and '94-'02 Kia Sportages 4x4. The front axle of the Sportage has a Mazda 4.778 ring and pinion (part number MM05727110), which high-performance retailers have been secretly selling as an aftermarket gear for over $1,000. The only difference between the $1,000 unit and the $267.93 gear set we bought is, of course, the price gouging and the possibility of a few retailers who add cryogenic treatment to the units as a bonus. The same 4.77 final gear set found in the Kia is interchangeable to fit on the S2K as a direct bolt on, as well as the Mazda final drive off a stock RX-8 with a 4.44 ratio. Upon further research, we found numerous final drive setups that were all interchangeable between the S2K and Mazda, including a n/a powered S2K's dream come true 4.625 ratio, which is available on the New Zealand Kia Sportage. When comparing the S2K factory 4.1-ratio final drive to the 4.77 final installed in our factory pumpkin, we found numerous pros and cons attributed with this setup.

What's even more intersting is a Suzuki w/ an S2K drivetrain for the WRC!:

http://www.autoblog.com/2009/04/21/the-suzuki-method-sx4-s2000-in-the-works-for-wrc-comeback/

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.autoblog.com/media/2009/04/sx4_wrc_002.jpg

EDIT: my mistake in the case of WRC S2000 refers to Super 2000 which is a WRC spec-class much like the formula and NASCAR series...it is not a S2K drivetrain.

[condor888000]

Interesting for sure.

[chinsterr]

http://www.turbomagazine.com/tech/0804_turp_kia_sportage_s2000_garage_tech/index.html

http://www.autoblog.com/2009/04/21/the-suzuki-method-sx4-s2000-in-the-works-for-wrc-comeback/



Good find.

[Darkfrosty7]

Interesting for sure.

yea good read

[Fobio]

my mistake:

in the case of WRC S2000 refers to Super 2000 which is a WRC spec-class much like the formula and NASCAR series...it is not a S2K drivetrain.

[condor888000]

Yeah I was wondering what was going on with that.

[evilempire]

ah nice to know
i know honda was really prepared for the recession
i wonder if it still effected them like toyota was hit

[Fobio]

The new Honda:

http://www.autoblog.com/2009/07/20/new-honda-president-says-we-dont-need-v8s-rear-wheel-drive/


New Honda president says we don't need V8s, rear-wheel drive
by Damon Lavrinc on Jul 20th 2009 at 2:29PM

Honda Motor Co.'s new president, Takanubo Ito, has said in no uncertain terms that V8 power and rear-wheel drive motivation aren't in the automaker's future.

Ito, who took the reigns from Takeo ***ui last month, said during his first press conference, "I don't think we need a classic front-engine, rear-drive car. It would be meaningless to emulate what other companies have done for more than five decades."

Honda's new president went on to say that, "We are considering incorporating new engines, motors, transmissions and chassis into mid- to large-sized hybrid vehicles," and confirmed that his predecessor's plan to create a V8 and a new rear-wheel drive architecture have been killed after Honda reassessed its priorities amidst the tanking economy. Instead, expect Honda's future premium offerings – primarily those from Acura – to adopt fuel-efficient inline-four and V6 engines, equipped with hybrid motors, and all-wheel drive.

[Zoom Zoom Boy]

My favorite part Fobio...


"It would be meaningless to emulate what other companies have done for more than five decades."

[Fobio]

My favorite part Fobio...

Guess they'll be pioneering Veritech Fighters and giant mechas...

that or those moving living rooms in "Minority Report"...

or maybe, the last generation of motor vehicle drivers have already been born?