Mercedes-Benz Korea, the No. 1 imported car brand in Korea, surpassed 6 trillion won in sales in 2021. Its net profit of 147.3 billion won was all paid out as dividends to the German headquarters and its major shareholders.Mercedes-Benz Korea’s sales in 2021 reached 6,121.3 billion won, up 14.7 perc
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) initiated an investigation on April 5 on 138,000 vehicles equipped with LG Energy Solution batteries.According to the NHTSA, GM, Mercedes-Benz, Stellantis and Hyundai Motor Co. have conducted recalls since 2020 for the risk of fire attributa
The author is an analyst of KB Securities. He can be reached at jeff.kim@kbfg.com. -- Ed. Maintain BUY, target price at KRW500,000; developer of the “eyes” of autonomous vehicles We maintain BUY and TP of KRW500,000 on LG Innotek given (1) potential to supply key optical components for self-driving
SK Telecom and KT are competing for supremacy in artificial intelligence (AI) voice recognition services for vehicles. SK Telecom expanded its territory last year by joining hands with Volvo. Then, KT partnered with Mercedes-Benz, which ranks first in the Korean imported car market. SK Telecom respo
CarIsYou Data Research Institute said on April 4 that 144,179 cars were newly registered in South Korea last month, up 25.8 percent from the previous month and down 14.8 percent from a year earlier.The new registrations include 116,172 domestic cars, up 22.8 percent from the previous month and down
CATL, the world’s largest EV battery manufacturer, has declared its North American market entry. Chinese EV battery manufacturers are likely to concentrate on the market with economical LFP batteries, which are about 20 percent cheaper than high-nickel batteries.CATL recently announced that it would
Major automakers including Volkswagen, Stellantis, Ford and Renault are very concerned as Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that the Russian government would nationalize foreign companies’ assets if they withdraw from Russia. Hyundai Motor Co., which enjoyed growth in the Russian market, al
Global automakers’ competition is heating up in the electric vehicle markets of the ASEAN and India.Mitsubishi Motors Thailand announced on March 21 that it would sell only pure electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid cars starting from 2024. Mitsubishi is the fourth-largest seller in the Thai car mark
South Korean electric vehicle battery manufacturers are continuing to concentrate on ternary batteries with maximum nickel content, despite soaring nickel prices.The London Metal Exchange halted nickel trading on March 8, when its price surged 250 percent. The measure is scheduled to continue until
With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine prolonged, global automobile manufacturers are declaring a boycott of Russia one after another. Hyundai Motor Group is under pressure to join the boycott. The group postponed its plan to resume the operations of its Russian plant on March 9.Ferrari and Lamborghini d
The prosecution forbade GM Korea president & CEO Kaher Kazem from leaving South Korea on March 3. He is currently in litigation regarding an illegal worker dispatch allegation and is scheduled to become an SAIC-GM vice president on June 1.The prosecution started investigations in 2019 and his overse
Hyundai Motor Group announced on Feb. 27 that German magazine Autozeitung picked the Ioniq 5 and the EV6 as the best electric SUVs.According to the group, the assessment is divided into the five categories of body, driving convenience, powertrain, economic advantages, and driving dynamics. Ioniq 5 s
KT's AI-based connected car solution will be used for Mercedes-Benz vehicles.KT announced on Feb. 17 that it has launched an AI voice recognition service for Mercedes-Benz models such as the S-Class and the EQA in cooperation with Cerence, an AI voice recognition solution company for vehicles in
The Korea Automobile Importers and Distributors Association (KAIDA) announced on Feb. 7 that the number of newly registered imported cars stood at 17,361 in January, a drop of 27.4 percent on month and 22.2 percent on year.By brand, the figure broke down into 5,550 for BMW, 3,405 for Mercedes-Benz,
The Korea Fair Trade Commission imposed a fine of 20.204 billion won on Mercedes-Benz Korea and Mercedes Benz Aktiengesellschaft with regard to diesel vehicle exhaust gas manipulation and related advertising from August 2013 to December 2016.“The two companies installed exhaust gas manipulation soft
The Korea Transportation Safety Authority announced on Jan. 16 that 2,932,820 cars divided into 2,443 models were recalled in South Korea last year. The figure, which is a record high, is the sum of those ordered by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and the Ministry of Environment w
Sony’s Vision-S concept car made a splash at CES 2022. Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics, in the meantime, are not planning on manufacturing electric vehicles.According to industry sources, both Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics, which are already manufacturing electric vehicle components,
LG Electronics announced on Jan. 12 that its plastic organic light emitting diode (P-OLED) infotainment systems will be loaded into the 2022 Mercedes-Benz EQS model.The infotainment system was jointly developed with the German carmaker and consists of three screens -- an instrument panel, a central
CarIsYou said on Jan. 4 that the Hyundai Grandeur was the most popular model in the new car market of South Korea last year. “Last year, the annual sales volume of the model dropped 40.1 percent to 87,985 after having exceeded 100,000 for four years in a row and this is because the global automotive
Sales of imported cars ascended from 22,321 units in January to 26,191 units in June, but their sales began to decrease in July, falling to 18,764 units in October and 18,810 units in November, according to the Korea Automobile Importers and Distributors Association (KAIDA).The figures dropped by 5,