Hyundai Motor’s EQ900 wins an award

GENESIS EQ900

Hyundai Motor’s new luxury sedan, the EQ900, has been honored with the 2015 Good Design Award, the company said on Wednesday.

The nation’s leading automaker said the flagship sedan, which rolled out earlier this month under its new Genesis luxury brand and will start sales globally next year, has won an award in the transportation design category in an event jointly organized by the Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design and the European Centre for Architecture, Art, Design and Urban Studies. The competition highlights good designs in electronics products, vehicles, furniture and computers made by companies in the Fortune Global 500.

This year, about 900 products from 38 nations competed, and the EQ900 won the transportation design category.

The automaker said the EQ900’s large radiator grille connected to the headlamps appealed to judges.

“We are preparing to launch this vehicle in the United States next year, and this will help us get word out about the car to customers in advance,” a Hyundai Motor spokesman said. “Since we are also preparing to roll out more new cars, including a large and midsize sedan, an SUV and a sports coupe, we expect the competitiveness of the new Genesis luxe brand to get much stronger.”

The EQ900 will make its global debut at the Detroit Auto Show next year.

The luxury sedan wasn’t the only Hyundai car honored. The automaker said its Ioniq hybrid vehicle, which will be rolled out next year, Avante compact sedan, Tucson SUV and Santa Cruze concept pickup truck (HCD-15) also won awards in transportation design. So too did three cars made by sister company Kia Motors: the Sorento SUV, K5 midsize sedan and Trail’ster concept car.

The full design of the environmentally-friendly Ioniq has not yet been unveiled to the public, but a spy shot of its hybrid model running on a road in the southern California region recently spread through the Internet. The Ioniq’s front is designed with Hyundai’s signature hexagonal grille, and the overall shape is similar to Toyota’s five-door Prius hatchback, which the company said would be a rival model.

The company wants to attract American consumers fond of the Prius, with its high fuel efficiency.

In November, Hyundai and Kia broke their monthly sales records in the U.S. market, the second-largest auto market in the world after China, and are expected to keep up the pace this month.

The two sold 105,560 units in November, a 7.1 percent rise from a year ago. Overall growth of the U.S. market in the month was only 1.6 percent. Hyundai and Kia surpassed that thanks to the popularity of SUVs, including the Santa Fe and Tucson, as well as theAvante compact sedan.

The company said sales of these key models will continue to increase. In November, Hyundai Motor America introduced the new Avante at the Los Angeles Auto Show, and Kia Motors launched its new Sportage SUV.

BY KWON SANG-SOO [kwon.sangsoo@joongang.co.kr]