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Value
That brings me to the ultimate and maybe most vital aspect of Hyundai Motor Group’s success within the burgeoning EV market: pricing. Sure, there are cheaper EVs on the market than what its manufacturers supply. There are prettier ones, extra luxurious ones, and ones with extra vary too. But no different EV lineup in the marketplace combines all these attributes like Hyundai Motor Group manufacturers do.
The electrical choices from Hyundai and Kia are usually not solely among the many best-looking and best-driving EVs of their segments but in addition essentially the most competitively priced. Both manufacturers have historically been value-oriented, and that continues right here because of some forward-thinking engineering.
I’m referring to the event of one thing known as E-GMP. That stands for the Electric Global Modular Platform, the {hardware} and software program system underpinning most EVs from Genesis, Hyundai, and Kia. Since all these vehicles share the identical fundamental structure, battery design, and electrical system, the manufacturers can save manufacturing and improvement prices.
It additionally helps that Hyundai Motor Group already operates a dozen factories in Korea and elsewhere on the earth, greater than half of which might or actively do produce EVs. This contains one in Alabama and one other EV-focused plant beneath building in Georgia. While different automakers are nonetheless determining their electrical automobile and battery manufacturing wants, Hyundai Motor Group obtained the ball rolling early.
Staying true to an EV imaginative and prescient
Another vital facet of Hyundai Motor Group’s success is its dealership information and buy-in.
For one, the corporate has achieved a nice job of getting its sellers on board with the EV shift. That’s a large distinction from different producers, whose sellers appear hell-bent on actively sabotaging their very own EV efforts, at occasions even leading to authorized motion.
“We consider our EVs resonate as a result of we now have prioritized nice design, sensible know-how, affordability, and a dedication to an electrical future,” Olabisi Boyle, senior vp of product planning and mobility technique at Hyundai Motor North America, advised me.
“We are addressing charging-time issues by way of our E-GMP structure’s 800-volt charging functionality,” she stated. “We are tackling infrastructure fears by together with a NACS [North American Charging Standard] port in our autos and partnering with different main automakers to construct the IONNA [EV charging] community. We’ll even assist set up a Level 2 charger in your storage and photo voltaic in your roof by Hyundai Home.”
This bundle of choices is extra holistic than what most automakers present in the intervening time.
Most vital, Hyundai additionally just lately reconfirmed its aim of 2 million annual EV gross sales by 2030, a sign that the corporate is staying the course on its EV targets as others waver. However, it’s price noting that 2 million EVs would equate to simply over a third of the corporate’s anticipated complete gross sales in 2030, a extra conservative goal than those different automakers are easing off of now. And identical to its opponents, Hyundai can also be investing extra in hybrid autos to satisfy the wants of shoppers who aren’t fairly able to transition.
For now, Hyundai Motor Group’s give attention to the basics, excessive vehicle-production quantity, and relatively conservative EV targets go a good distance towards explaining why the model is in a extra enviable place on electrification than a lot of its opponents.
