The South Korean car manufacturer is pushing ahead with the expansion of electromobility.
(Photo: REUTERS)
Tokyo When it comes to electromobility, South Korea’s largest carmaker Hyundai is already doing well in the industry comparison. On Tuesday, the group announced at its investor day that it would electrify its fleet faster than previously planned.
The group increased its sales forecast for 2030 from 1.87 to two million battery electric cars. This is intended to increase their share of production from the current eight to 34 percent.
The South Koreans also revealed how expensive the epochal change in the auto industry is for the company. Hyundai wants to invest 109.4 trillion won, the equivalent of 78 billion euros, over the next ten years. Around a third will flow into electrification and battery technology, the rest into the development of new vehicle architectures and the construction of new factories.
Another car manufacturer has reacted to the growing demand for electric cars and revised its plans upwards. Last month, the world’s largest carmaker Toyota announced that it would increase sales of electric cars from the current tens of thousands to 1.5 million by 2026. The US competitor Ford, in turn, wants to sell two million fully electric models per year.
Hyundai has an advantage here: With models such as the Ioniq 5 and Ioniq 6 as well as versions of the group brand Kia, the car company is in fifth place among electric car manufacturers worldwide, according to market researcher Bloomberg NEF with 109,000 units sold this year. Especially the rivals from Japan, who had bet on hybrid cars for a long time, can only dream of it at the moment.
The strategy is similar to that of other manufacturers: Hyundai wants to significantly reduce development times and thus costs by developing a new vehicle architecture. The group promises its investors to increase the profit margin for electric cars to over ten percent by 2030. In 2022, the return on sales was 6.9 percent.
Hyundai is building its own electric car factory in the USA
Hyundai sees Europe and the USA as key markets. In Europe, the Koreans expect electric cars to spread rapidly. The company predicts that the share of electric cars in sales will increase from the current seven to 54 percent by 2030. But the Koreans are also investing heavily in the USA.
The manufacturer is building its own electric car factory for the US market with an annual capacity of 300,000 vehicles. In the future, 75 percent of the vehicles produced in North America are to be electric cars – up to now it has been 0.7 percent. The Koreans are reacting to pressure from the US government, which wants to strengthen the production of key components for electric cars in their own country.
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However, the South Korean company lags behind its Japanese rivals on one point. While Toyota, Nissan and Honda want to introduce the next generation of solid-state batteries from 2027 and 2028, the Koreans are still silent on a date.
In contrast to previous accumulators, solid-state batteries do not have liquid but solid electrolytes and thus achieve twice the energy density and faster charging times. The Japanese manufacturers expect the new technology to give them a clear competitive advantage.
The Koreans name autonomous driving, hydrogen technologies including fuel cell drives, robots and air taxis as further strategic growth areas. In the meantime, Hyundai has founded the subsidiary Supernal in the USA in order to make the dream of flying come true.
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