Fourth of July weekend prompted an additional reason to celebrate aside from the nation's birthday - It also marked the milestone of Hyundai selling its 100,000th vehicle achieving 40 miles per gallon highway fuel economy. Hyundai outsold all other automakers' 40 mpg offerings this year, with 29% of its sales volume falling in this 40 mpg category, a number that skyrocketed to 40% in the month of June.

Hyundai's "4x40" strategy includes four models that reach 40 mpg standard this year, including the Elantra, Sonata Hybrid, the all-new 2012 Accent, and the Veloster, a new model arriving this fall. The Elantra kicked off this sales strategy in December 2010, setting a sales pace that was 79% ahead of last year, paving the way for the Sonata Hybrid and Accent which followed in 2011. With the youthful and fun  Veloster yet to come, Hyundai is positioned to grow its 40 mpg sales volume even more significantly through the end of the year.

While four models achieving 40 mpg is quite impressive on its own, Hyundai sees this as just the beginning, setting its sights on at least 50 mpg corporate average fuel economy by 2025.  The automaker is already on the right track, using a mix of technologies to improve the efficiency of the standard, internal combustion engine vehicles, combined with the smart application of hybrid technology.  It seems pretty certain that we can expect additional fireworks from Hyundai in the future.