Focusing on Green Cars
The Hyundai Motor Group increases the number of its green car models including hybrid electric vehicle (HEV), plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV), EV (electric vehicle) and fuel cell electric vehicle (FCEV) from 13 to 38 by 2025. In particular, the group is also planning to increase the number of its electric vehicle (EV) models from two to 14 during the same period to rank third in the global EV market.
In the first half of this year, the Hyundai Motor Group came in second in the world, behind Toyota, in terms of green car sales. According to the group, the size of the global green car market is estimated to reach 16.27 million cars in 2025.
The group is going to release at least one new EV each year until 2025 to achieve its goal in the global EV market. For the first nine months of this year, the group’s EV sales volume increased 2.5-fold compared to the same period of last year. Still, it ranked 11th and sixth in the global EV market in 2016 and 2017, respectively.
The group is predicting that it will be able to join the top five once the EV versions of Kona, Niro and Soul are released next year. The Kona EV, in addition, is expected to have a driving range per charge of about 400 km. In particular, Hyundai Motor Company’s Genesis brand is expected to release an EV with a driving range per charge of more than 500 km in 2021. The group is going to initiate the development of dedicated EV platforms soon, too.
At the same time, the group works on commercial fuel cell EVs (FCEVs). In this context, it runs FCEVs at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics in January next year before releasing a new FCEV in March. Furthermore, its electric trucks with a loading capacity of one ton and 2.5 tons are slated to debut in 2019 along with electric buses and hydrogen-powered buses.