Hyundai Motor Group Executive Chair Euisun Chung delivers a New Year’s speech to its employees at the group’s R&D center in Namyang, Gyeonggi Province, on Jan. 3, 2023. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, Jan. 3 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korea’s Hyundai Motor Group said Tuesday it will accelerate a wider transition to electric vehicles (EV) this year as it aims to morph into a future mobility solutions provider.
In his meeting for the new year with employees, the group’s Executive Chair Euisun Chung said the company will gain a bigger share in the global EV market and generate a new growth driver in autonomous driving, future mobility and robotics in 2023.
“The company will make an aggressive investment to hire proven talents in new-growth business sectors and develop new technologies to become the first mover that leads the future mobility market,” he said in a statement.
Last year, Hyundai Motor Co.’s IONIQ 5 won the 2022 World Car of the Year and Kia Corp.’s EV6 was named the 2022 European Car of the Year. It marked the beginning of the group’s “successful” shift to electrification, he said.
The Hyundai IONIQ 5 and the Kia EV6 are equipped with the Korean automotive group’s EV-dedicated platform called E-GMP.
In autonomous driving, the group plans to launch a Level 3 car, which allows lane changes and other autonomous driving functions to work without intervention from the driver in the domestic market this year.
In the first half, Hyundai Motor Group said it will introduce the Level 3 Genesis G90 and the Kia EV9 autonomous driving models, while planning to commercialize the Level 4 IONIQ 5-based robo taxi services in the United States through Motional, a joint venture set up between Hyundai Motor and the U.S. mobility startup Aptiv.
At Level 4, a vehicle can drive itself under limited conditions and will not operate if all required conditions are not satisfied. At Level 5, a vehicle’s automated driving features can drive under any conditions.
The group plans to begin launching most of its new vehicles as “software defined vehicles” (SDVs) in global markets in 2025 and aims to regularly update the performance and function of all vehicles to be sold globally in the same year.
As for business environments, the executive chair said the lingering impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, rising interest rates and prices, volatile exchange rates and geopolitical risks, such as the Russia-Ukraine war, remain major worries for carmakers.
Hyundai and Kia have set a combined sales goal of 7.52 million units in 2023, up 9.8 percent from 6.85 million units they sold last year.
Hyundai and Kia aim to sell 4.32 million autos and 3.2 million units, respectively, in global markets this year.
(Yonhap)
