Over 4 million Hyundai cars were sold in 2022, but significant changes are coming as the parent company sets lofty E.V. goals. Hyundai wants to be one of the “top three electric vehicles (E.V.) manufacturers” by 2030, the company isn’t sure what that means. If the Hyundai Motor Group wants to sell 3.6 million electric cars by 2030, it will have to work hard. In the race, there will be no breaks. Hyundai Motor Group wants to be the best in the world. Automakers are now playing a game called “How about these cool electric vehicles?” The new company from South Korea is winning this game but wants more. This month, the Hyundai Motor Group (HMG) wants to be one of the “Top 3 E.V. manufacturers” by 2030. What that means needs to be clarified, and even Hyundai doesn’t want to say the names of the companies it wants to go after. Tesla is the world’s best electric vehicle (E.V.) maker, but they are not the only one. Will Hyundai sell Chinese names only sold in China, like SAIC Motors and the Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation, which sell a lot of city E.V.s? Or does Hyundai want to be in the top three no matter what other companies are considered? Who are the three best? When we asked HMG spokesman Seoyong Choi about Hyundai’s rivals in this area, he said, “We do not comment on other automakers.” Choi did say that the company’s goal of being in the “global top three” for E.V. sales will be measured by both passenger cars and industrial vehicles from Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis. By 2030, HMG will have more than 30 E.V. cars for sale. Instead, think about how many E.V.s have been sold. Let’s look at what’s going on now to put things in perspective and better understand how big Hyundai’s plans are. In 2021, sales of plug-in cars worldwide were almost three times as high as sales of E.V.s and PHEVs the year before. The International Energy Agency says that the number of E.V.s sold each year in 2020 was about the same as in the years before the pandemic. In 2021, China will sell about 2.7 million E.V.s, the U.S. will sell about 500,000, and Europe will sell about 1.2 million. Choi says that by 2030, HMG wants to build and sell 3.6 million electric cars worldwide. Hyundai sold 3.9 million vehicles with all types of engines in 2022, and it plans to sell 4.3 million vehicles with all kinds of machines in 2023. The best is still Tesla. Who are Hyundai’s main rivals? The electric vehicle (E.V.) market leader, Tesla, will sell 1.3 million cars in 2022, and sales are still high even though CEO Elon Musk’s Twitter behavior is still a worry. Because of what Musk has done, we won’t be able to tell what will happen in 2030, but no one should expect Tesla to fail. Volkswagen has said it wants 50% of its sales to be electric by 2030. Ford, GM, and Volkswagen have all made a lot of progress in recent years with their E.V. projects. V.W. thinks that it will sell 4.5 million cars by 2022. Also, we still need to find out where Chinese companies like BYD that want to do business worldwide will be by the end of the decade. It was made in both the U.S. and Korea. Choi wouldn’t say how many new electric vehicle (E.V.) charging stations could be promoted and built before the deadline of 2030. If more E.V.s are sold, new E.V. plants will need to be constructed, or current ones will need to be expanded. HMG has said it will spend $18 billion to grow the Korean E.V. market, including money for new plants. It also says that it wants 1.5 million of the 3.6 million E.V.s it will make and sell by 2030 to be made in Korea. HMG noted in 2022 that the Niro Plus is an electric car that will be used in Korea as a basic model and a cab that doesn’t put out any pollution. When Hyundai started building a new electric vehicle (E.V.) factory in Georgia last October, the company said it could make up to 500,000 EVs annually. HMG must increase capacity somewhere to reach the “Top 3” goal. However, Choi would only say, “We are looking at different scenarios to respond to the market situation flexibly.” When it comes out in 2025, Hyundai’s Integrated Modular Architecture (IMA) system will have a next-generation, specialized passenger electric vehicle (E.V.) platform called eM. This will give Hyundai more design freedom. Hyundai says that standard batteries and motors can be used in cars built on IMA platforms “to speed up and improve the efficiency of product development.”
