NEW YORK (CNMMNoney.com) -- With gas prices rising and car sales in the dumps, Hyundai is offering new car buyers gas at $1.49 a gallon for a year.

The offer is called the Hyundai Assurance Gas Lock promotion. As with the Hyundai Assurance program the carmaker instituted in January which enabled buyers to give back their car at no cost in the event of a job loss, the Korean automaker is again using promotions aimed at easing car buyers' economic concerns.

As an alternative, buyers can take a $1,000 rebate instead of the gas incentive. Other cash rebates are still available whether or not the customer opts for the cheap gas.

Hyundai expects gas prices to reach about $2.70 a gallon in July with some areas experiencing $3.00 a gallon gas.

http://money.cnn.com/2009/06/30/autos/hyun...sion=2009063016

i find it funny that Hyundai "expects gas prices to hit $2.70 in July".. gas prices are already $2.70 in most places and have been for weeks.. i know NY has $2.75 as does PA... (NJ still hovering around $2.50)

This seems like a good promotion. I remember Chrysler's promotion last year of $2.99 a gallon, people bought cars and then gas dropped. Gas seems to be dropping a few pennies.

When I was in San Francisco a week ago gas was $3.50. From this ex-Californian, another reason not to move to the Golden State.

It's always best to do a little due dilligence on these sorts of things. Here's what I found:

- allows for enough gas to drive 12000 miles in 1 year
- the gallons you can buy depends on the model car you bought

I couldn't find info on whether they use average MPG or Highway MPG or something else...but this promo clearly is a better deal if you buy a gas guzzler. But let's plug some numbers into the Sonata and assume 28 mpg.

12000/28 = ~430 gallons of gas

Base price = $1.50 per gallon
High price = $4.00 per gallon...this is a pure guess, but rest assured that Hyundai looked at this and current futures contracts pricing to estimate where they think it could go

delta per gallon = $2.50

Savings under this scenario = $1075...how convenient

Further more, Hyundai is only applying it to vehicles purchased in July. Which makes it very easy for Hyundai to:

- estimate the number of vehicles they will sell
- buy futures contracts (or sell them, probably sell them) on the open market based on their estimated exposure

I'd be willing to bet that Hyundai has already purchased gas contracts to cover this. It's the beauty of such a program...a lot of people will probably do the math and determine it makes more sense to take the $1000 discount. But Hyundai gets to sell a bunch of futures contracts (or buy them) to cover the cost of the program. If gas doesn't go over their break even point, they end up making more money in the end and the buyers (or sellers) of the gas contracts essentially fund the discount that the car buyers are capitalizing on.....futures contracts are a zero-sum gain, only the broker is guaranteed to make money.

Isn't capitalism grand?

I just heard an advertisement on the radio for the promotion. It excludes the Accent and the Genesis.

These Gas Plans seem like a joke. All the people who took the Chrysler plan could have got $2000 Cash. They all have

lost with this plan, and the remainder of the Gas plan was wiped out in Bankruptcy.


I just paid $2.41 minutes ago in Arizona. GM says a Barrel of Oil will be $130 soon. It was $36 a few months back.

Our Economy is based on $40 Oil. Most jobs pay accordingly. In fact pay is going down in the U.S. as Unemployment rises.

oil is only $69 a barrel and fell $0.50 today.. can't see $130 per barrel this year.. but who knows

Miami, I have to agree with ddix. Unless we have a destructive hurricane oil will not being going to $130 a barrel. I think we may see $80 but oil seems to be leveling off.Even though it has jumped for 2 months it has dropped about 10 cents in the past week and just before a big holiday too.


The difference between Hyundai's and Chrysler's gas plan is that I don't think we are going to see $1.49 gas. Sure it could happen where gas drops $2 in a short amount of time, but that was at a high of $4 a gallon. I think a 50 cent drop would be steep. Seeing it drop to $2.25 in a few months may be possible. I also think that people will realize in most cases taking the $1,000 is going to be a better deal. If you look at Hyundai's rebates this month, they suck. Add the $1,000 you get for not taking the $1.49 and they are back to what they were last month. We sold a ton of cars last month, especially Sonata's which we sold 42 in just 2 weeks and we only have 8 now, we usually keep between 55-70. Accent are selling as soon as they come in, they always sat on the lot. Elantra's are selling well too. Santa Fe's are selling like crazy as of the past week because we just stocked up on them and have a great selection. Hyundai's incentives and tactics are working.

This post has been edited by HyundaiLvr87: Jul 2 2009, 02:43 PM

Oil dropped to $66.63 today. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/banana.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/banana.gif) GM is just trying to mess with us. If I didn't dislike GM before, I even

think less of them now (IMG:style_emoticons/default/thumbsup.gif)