Expanding Components for Green Cars
Hyundai Mobis Co. will expand its sales of components for environmentally friendly cars, including electric cars and hydrogen powered cars, from 1.2 trillion won (US$1.12 billion) in 2017 to 3 trillion won (US$2.8 billion) by 2020. The company is planning to secure the economy of scale through sales expansion as well as improve its own technical skills to supply products to global leading automakers.
According to auto industry and component industry sources on Jan. 30, Hyundai Mobis recently set up the internal policy to boost its component sales for the so-called xEV, which refers to pure electric vehicle (EV) such as electric vehicle (EV), hybrid electric vehicle (HEV), plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) and fuel cell electric vehicle (FCEV), to 3 trillion won (US$2.8 billion) by 2020. This is in line with the plan of Hyundai Motor Co. and its smaller affiliate Kia Motors Corp. to increase the number of its xEV models from the current 13 to 38 by 2025. Hyundai Mobis is planning to accomplish the goal by winning orders from not only Hyundai and Kia Motors but also global leading car makers.
The four key parts of EVs, HEVs and PHEVs are a battery module pack, drive motor, inverter and converter. For FCEVs, there is one more key component – a fuel cell stack system, which is expensive enough to account for 25 percent to 30 percent of the price of hydrogen powered cars. The auto industry estimates that Hyundai Mobis rang up 620 billion won (US$578.36 million) in 2016 and 1.2 trillion won (US$1.12 billion) in 2017 in sales by monopolizing the supply of these xEV key parts.
Hyundai Mobis expects to gain the competence to compete in the global market in the process of accomplishing 3 trillion won (US$2.8 billion) of the xEV sales. The company aims to secure the economy of scale and experience by supplying products to Hyundai Motor and Kia Motors and compete with global component producers based on it. There will not many parts manufacturers that can stably supply key components in bulk when the xEV market has become mature enough in the future. This is why Hyundai Mobis believes that it is the most important to secure the global competitiveness early.
In fact, Hyundai Mobis has been adopting an eco-friendly component self-development system starting with the release of Hyundai Motor’s Ioniq and Kia Motors’ Niro in 2016. The company worked together with Hyundai Motor and Kia Motors in research and development before 2016. However, Hyundai Mobis has been strengthening its competence as it believes that it is able to push into the global market only when they wholly secure the ability of environmentally friendly parts development.