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Tag: hyundai

  • Amazon Is Now Selling Hyundai Vehicles Through Amazon Autos

    Amazon Is Now Selling Hyundai Vehicles Through Amazon Autos

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    The next time you see a Hyundai online, you may just be able to hit Add to Cart.

    Assuming you want a new Hyundai specifically, you can now buy the car on Amazon. The online retailer has launched its long-awaited automotive service called Amazon Autos. Amazon announced the service in late 2023, saying it would come sometime in 2024. The service is available today, just in time to slide right under the deadline.

    The Korean automaker is the only manufacturer working with Amazon Autos, though Amazon says it will “roll out” (pun almost certainly intended) services with additional dealerships and manufacturers in 2025.

    Customers can hop on to Amazon Autos and search for the Hyundai make and model they want, then find vehicles at nearby dealerships with the combination of features they want. Shoppers can select trim, color, and interior features, then get a valuation on their current vehicle to estimate a trade-in price. (Amazon says it is working with an “independent third party” to determine trade-in values.)

    The checkout process gives options to pay in full or to find help securing financing—though interest rates may vary. Finally, shoppers can e-sign most of the paperwork on Amazon, then schedule a time to pick up their new ride at the Hyundai dealer. There are also the familiar features that have come to feel like the stalwarts of buying stuff on Amazon: user reviews, star ratings, and an add-to-cart button. (Throw some soap in there too while you’re buying that $66,000 Ioniq 5.)

    Unlike with everything else Amazon sells on its website, it will not offer shipping service for the vehicles, so you’ll still have to go pick them up from a dealership. There are also some stipulations that make the service not quite as simple as shopping on Amazon usually is. The service is available in 48 US states. (Sorry Alaska and Hawaii.) It will allow buyers to purchase only new Hyundai vehicles for now, so no used vehicles yet.

    Amazon’s move makes sense in an always-online world where cars are full of software and riddled with subscription fees. It is also illustrative of the changing consumer behaviors that are leading to, well, the Amazonification of car buying. Manufacturers like Tesla and Rivian sell their vehicles to customers almost exclusively online. Other automakers will surely follow, and it is clear that Amazon wants to not just get in on that trend but also be at the center of it. Still, some dealers are skeptical that the service will really work in Amazon’s favor long-term. Buying cars is a complicated business, compounded by rules in the US that prevent retailers like Amazon from selling cars directly.

    The service Amazon is providing here is not actually that of a seller—you still have to go to the dealership to get the thing—but a facilitator of the deal between the buyer and a dealership. The company is acting as a middleman of sorts, hoping that if it makes the process of buying a car more simple than the haggling and negotiating of going direct to a dealer, it will be enough to entice buyers to click the buy button.

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  • The Atlas Robot Is Dead. Long Live the Atlas Robot

    The Atlas Robot Is Dead. Long Live the Atlas Robot

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    You don’t need to have been petrified by Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Skynet-commissioned cyborg assassin in 1984’s The Terminator to fret that super-strong, all-terrain, bipedal humanoid robots sprinting up steps, pulling backflips, and righting themselves could be programmed to break our necks on sight. (And laser guns, never give them laser guns.)

    With the Old Atlas, we could comfort ourselves with the notion that clever editing meant Atlas wasn’t as self-righting over rough ground as the original viral videos portrayed. The pratfalls in the retirement video prove that hunch was correct. However, today’s video might well resurrect any robot overlord fears you may have since suppressed. This thing is scary, and not just because it has a ringlight for a face. (Who had “Robot YouTube influencer” on their 2024 bingo card?)

    It was nice knowing you, Old Atlas—you awesome, pratfalling, parkouring, metal man machine.

    Scary, too, if you’re an Amazon warehouse worker, because the New Atlas could do that job with one three-fingered hand tied behind its matte gray robotic back. More likely, however, is that Hyundai—which bought Boston Dynamics in 2020, valuing it at $1 billion—could soon set Atlas to work in its car factories. The “journey will start with Hyundai,” confirmed Boston Dynamics in a statement announcing the All New Atlas launch.

    Again, no details have been released, but we can surmise that the new Atlas will be given dull, repetitive tasks in the Korean company’s factories rather than, say, laser welding. (Remember, keep lasers away from robot butlers.)

    Hyundai isn’t the only company planning to use humanoid robots as workers. Beating Tesla’s still-in-development Optimus line of humanoid robots, Sanctuary AI of Canada announced on April 11 that it would be delivering a humanoid robot to Magna, an Austrian automotive firm that assembles cars for Mercedes, Jaguar, and BMW.

    And Californian robotics startup Figure announced in February that it had raised $675 million from investors such as Nvidia, Microsoft, and Amazon to work with OpenAI on generative artificial intelligence for humanoid robots.

    A general-purpose humanoid robot that can learn on the fly. What could possibly go wrong with that?

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  • Hydrogen Cars Were the Key to the Future. For Some Owners, That Future Hasn’t Arrived Yet

    Hydrogen Cars Were the Key to the Future. For Some Owners, That Future Hasn’t Arrived Yet

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    “We have a giant, beautiful, red paperweight in our driveway,” Snell says.

    Snell is just one of many California hydrogen fuel-cell car owners facing difficulties as a confluence of unfortunate events—tech limitations, rising station operating costs, policy changes, even the Russian invasion of Ukraine—have hiked hydrogen fuel prices and taken hydrogen fueling stations offline.

    Just under 12,000 fuel-cell electric vehicles, powered by hydrogen instead of gas or pure electricity, were on the road in California in 2022, where the vast majority of the country’s FCEV drivers live. (Only one other state, Hawaii, even has a publicly available hydrogen fuel station.) American drivers bought almost 3,000 of the cars last year, according to an industry group.

    FCEV drivers who spoke to WIRED report that they love their cars, which offer smooth, comfortable rides and tech features, and were purchased, new or used, at lower prices than competitive vehicles. All three automakers (Toyota, Hyundai, and Honda) selling the vehicles in California offer $15,000 fuel cards with each purchase as an added bonus. Some drivers told WIRED that their FCEVs fit neatly into their lives, because they live near consistent fueling stations, can depend on another car when prices get too expensive, or don’t drive much at all. But others say they can’t keep the cars moving.

    “We are suffering from premature deployment,” says Robin Gaster, a public policy researcher and senior fellow at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation who recently published a report on clean hydrogen policy. Policymakers and car companies, he argues, were too early to launch unproven hydrogen fueling technology.

    Sacramento resident Scott Werntz and his wife Lori bought a Toyota Mirai in the fall of 2022. A discount and included fueling card made the car feel like a great deal. But last year the couple began to have to wait in line, sometimes for more than hour, to refuel their car. Once, they had to have their vehicle towed after a local fuel-cell station went down while they were waiting to top up. Now, they say, they rely on another car and a gratis rental from Toyota to get around.

    Toyota spokesperson Josh Burns said the company is aware of refueling issues in the state. “We remain committed to working with stakeholders to support California’s hydrogen refueling infrastructure now and into the future,” he wrote in an email. He said the company is working with Mirai owners to help them on a case-by-case basis.

    A Hyundai spokesperson referred WIRED to Bill Elrick, the executive director of the Hydrogen Fuel Cell Partnership, who wrote that the Shell Hydrogen shutdown will “cause temporary challenges,” but that new vehicles, funding, and infrastructure made the group optimistic. Carl Pulley, a Honda spokesperson, said that the company has made investments in hydrogen fueling infrastructure in California and highlighted the CRV e:FCEV, a new fuel-cell vehicle set to debut this year.

    Shell Hydrogen spokesperson Anna Arata wrote in a statement that the company aims to “be more disciplined in our delivery,” and intends to invest $1 billion in hydrogen and carbon-capture storage technology both this year and next.

    In many ways, fuel-cell electric vehicles are an appealing option for car buyers looking to lessen their carbon footprint. A greener alternative to internal combustion engine cars, they’re powered by compressed hydrogen, which is converted by onboard fuel cells into electricity.

    Hydrogen excels where battery electric vehicle tech falters. The fuel is abundant, light, emissions-free and, theoretically, cheap—attractive to many who despair at the tricky state of the electric vehicle battery supply chain. Filling a car up with hydrogen is quick, more akin to topping up with gas than waiting between 15 minutes and several hours at an EV charging station. And FCEVs have long ranges, traveling up to 400 miles on a tank.

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