A new Elantra; of mice & cars; Bernie Moreno

CURB APPEAL PLUS: Designers of Hyundai’s 2017 Elantra have given it a sports sedan exterior, but a wide offering of high-tech features is its main calling card. Bill Griffith

By Bill Griffith

December 6, 2015

4 minutes to read

One of Bill Gates’ oft-repeated quotes is “content is king.’’ The Microsoft co-founder wrote an essay on the subject in 1996, envisioning that content would be where the bulk of the money would be made on the Internet.

As far as Hyundai and its corporate sidekick, Kia, are concerned, he might as well have been talking about the automotive industry.

The Korean companies used their 10-year, 100,000-mile powertrain warranty to gain a foothold in the US market, then moved to a content strategy to develop their brand by adding more features to their vehicles than other makers were offering for a similar price.

This approach has helped speed up the industry’s trickle-down theory of introducing new technologies.

A decade ago, the best features—remember when ABS (antilock brakes) and stability control were cutting edge?—would be introduced on a company’s most expensive models then would trickle down to their less-expensive lines.

Now, much of the high-end technology can be found in compact cars. That includes advances such as adaptive cruise control, automated emergency braking, lane keeping assist, smart high beams, and even dynamic (bending) headlights.

The explanations are many, but two stand out.

“Millennials want smooth integration with their devices, and Baby Boomers still want their accustomed content in a smaller package,’’ says Mike Evanoff, Hyundai’s manager of product planning.

As a result, the trickle down is turning into a waterfall. “These are features customers demand now,’’ was how Hyundai vice president Mike O’Brien put it in Los Angeles.

The New England Motor Press Association got the message about well-equipped compact vehicles first-hand the Monday before Thanksgiving when Kia shipped a pre-production Elantra sedan to Middleboro for a local introduction.

And it wasn’t just any Elantra. This was the same car that had been on stage and in the international spotlight in LA just five days before.

Hyundai pulled out all the stops for the LA introduction and will help officially launch the redesigned Elantra with one of its four in-game Super Bowl spots on Feb. 7. It’s the first of 10 new or significantly enhanced model upgrades Hyundai is planning in the next 36 months, along with launching a separate Genesis brand with six new models between 2016 and 2021.

Elantra is Hyundai’s top seller, accounting for 31 percent of sales last year. The previous five generations have sold 2.6 million units in the United States and more than 10 million worldwide since the Elantra launched in 1991. It’s the sixth-best seller worldwide.

Evanoff points out styling features of the new Elantra that include the company’s signature hexagonal grille, vertical LED driving lights, aerodynamic front vents, and dashboard controls that are angled by seven degrees toward the driver.

He emphasizes that the new Elantra will be more refined with additional attention to soundproofing and increased use of airline-strength adhesives. “It will reduce road, wind, and engine noise,’’ he promises.

“The eight-speaker Infinity sound system also clarifies sound, expanding the compressed formats for digital music and recapturing the sound the artists intended,’’ he says.

“We’re looking for a Safety+ rating, the highest the IIHS [Insurance Institute for Highway Safety] offers,’’ he says, citing available safety features such as pedestrian detection, autonomous braking, smart cruise control, lane-keeping assist with corrective steering input, blind spot warning, and cross traffic alert.

The Elantra comes in SE and Limited trim levels with a standard 2.0-liter 4 mated to a 6-speed automatic transmission. An Eco variant with a 1.4-liter turbo and 7-speed dual-clutch automatic will be available next spring.

Word from LA was that a sport edition will arrive later next year and be the most powerful Elantra ever offered. On the flip side, Hyundai said that a hatchback successor to the present Elantra GT isn’t in the plans.

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Hyundai and other car brands with great sales experiences

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A Better Mousetrap?

Last week’s suggestion to employ D-Con as part of an anti-mouse strategy when storing a car for winter brought some interesting responses. (Side note: you auto section readers are the best). Among them:

1. The revelation that poisoned mice often wind up being eaten by other predators, poisoning animals farther up the food chain such as hawks and owls.

2. Many folks have employed defenses, including dryer sheets (the Bounce defense), moth balls, Irish Spring soap chunks, cups of antifreeze, cans of steel wool (or tape) blocking exhaust and air intakes, sulfur (granules or powder), black pepper, ultrasonic rodent repellents, and old-fashioned mousetraps. For everyone who espouses one method, someone else says it doesn’t work (except traps).

3. Perhaps the most expensive solution was to encase the car in one of those car capsules with some traps around the perimeter.

Meet Bernie Moreno

We omitted a Globe “Best Places to Work’’ auto dealership from last week’s notes. Mercedes-Benz of Burlington was among the honorees, but it had been listed as a Bernie Moreno Company. Your author didn’t recognize the name. Moreno, a former Boston-area dealership executive, now has his own dealership group headquartered in Ohio, which he recently renamed the Bernie Moreno Companies. The group also has franchises in Kentucky and Florida.