Hyundai Skimps on Gas Promise

Hyundai, the Korean carmaker that already offers one of the best warranties in the business and that will take your car back if you lose your job, is now offering to subsidize your fuel costs for a new vehicle. There’s just one small exception: the company’s two best cars.

Basically, Hyundai is extending its “Assurance” program, which was developed earlier this year, to include regular gas for $1.49 per gallon, on cars purchased through August. Here’s the salient info, via Jalopnik.

If you read through the announcement, however, you’ll notice that the offer can also be used for higher-grade fuel: Premium can be locked in for $1.79 per gallon. Given the range of gas prices we’ve seen over the past year or so, that seems like a pretty good deal.

Except that a Hyundai vehicle for which a dedicated premium-fuel buyership might exist—the new Genesis—doesn’t appear to be included in the program, which is being managed through a third-party operation called Pricelock:

Hyundai Assurance Gas Lock is standard on all new Accent (excluding base model), Tiburon, Elantra, Elantra Touring, Entourage, Sonata, Azera, Santa Fe, Tucson and Veracruz models, most of which are eligible for $3,500 to $4,500 in government CARS (Consumer Assistance to Recycle and Save) vouchers for those consumers with less fuel-efficient trade-ins.

So why is the 2009 North American Car of the Year not part of this deal? As this Edmunds.com rundown on premium fuel shows, you don’t need to run even luxury cars on the good stuff (due to more sophisticated engine sensors and technology), but many upscale owners do anyway, mainly to obtain the performance advantages.

The most desirable Genesis model is the sedan with a 375-horsepower V8 engine. It sells for less than $40,000 and is designed to compete, somewhat quixotically, with Mercedes and BMW (both of which also have rear-wheel drive). It’s not hard to envision a customer who would go for this car and then also decide to secure premium gas at less than $2 a gallon for a year.

The only explanation I can muster (and I called Hyundai to get their side of the story, so I’ll update as I learn more) is that the company has suffered its first little bite in the butt for electing to keep the Genesis lineup (there’s also a coupe) in the Hyundai family, rather than emulating Toyota, Honda, and Nissan by creating a separate luxury brand (Lexus, Acura, Infiniti). It’s one thing to push incentives and discounts—and even a take-back program—for the mass-market lineup but quite another in the luxury segment, where cutthroat brand impressions are everything.

Still, you can do the math and anticipate that a Hyundai Genesis V8 plus $1.79 premium guaranteed equals a potential savings/extra incentive of around $1,000 for 12 months. In a very down market, with Hyundai bringing new luxury vehicles into the game, you’d think the company might want to do everything possible to sweeten the sale.

UPDATE: According to Hyundai, the Genesis Sedan and Coupe were excluded from the offer because they’re both relatively new cars for which there’s high demand at the moment. So in addition to the company’s stated desire to provide buyers with yet another reason to participate in the “cash for clunkers” program, Hyundai also wanted to create a sales incentive for older models. This wasn’t considered to be as important for the Genesis cars, which are apparently selling pretty well, even given the depressed market.

Still, if I were buying a Genesis, especially the V8, I'd want to get me some (probably) cheap gas to go with it.