no they are not ready. Hyundai itself has not evolved to the point where it's a respectable enough brand yet. If they were to have a luxury brand, people would just say, oh thats just an overpriced hyundai. Which will still be fairly negative. (i.e. this will be a negative status symbol) Acura/Honda and Lexus/Toyota still face this issue, although, from having such a solid reputation in their standard brands, this is less of a dig on the quality as it is on just the branding.

 

I agree. When I think Hyundai, I think "Cheap" or "Value". I don't think "on par" or "Class leading".

A luxury brand from them has more of a challege image wise than Toyota/Nissan/Honda did.

 

Hyundai has 2 models that aren't sold here: Grandeur and Centennial. both are pretty good cars but IMO they're just on par with Camry and Avalon. not quite there to compete with Lexus yet.