Hyundai BLUE-WILL, the plug-in hybrid with a face only a mother could love

via DVICE by CharlieWhite on 3/25/09

So what if Hyundai is a little late to the plug-in hybrid car market? It's designed the oddly-named BLUE-WILL, a bizarre-looking car that resembles a grimacing beaver, all dolled up in eco-friendly plastics and powered by a 100kw electric motor lashed onto a 1.6-liter gas engine.

It's not a real car yet, destined for the Seoul Motor Show (April 2) as a design exercise showing that Hyundai has the techno-chops to put together a plug-in hybrid. It borrows a few ideas here and there, such as its solar-paneled top, but the real mojo might be in its lithium ion polymer battery pack, said to be "state-of-the-art."

Now if Hyundai can just figure out how to lure somebody — anybody — into buying a car, it'll be a breakthrough. Where there's a BLUE-WILL, there's a way? Not when your bait is the second coming of the ugliest car in history, the Pontiac Aztek. With BLUE-WILL's strange open-mouthed grin (and what's up with that all-caps name?), we're afraid this design might scare away more buyers than it attracts.