Frontal Confrontation

Taxis fill the streets of Singapore.
Taxis fill the streets of Singapore.

 

Hyundai Motor and Toyota, rivals in the global automobile market, are recently making similar moves. While both of them are securing the local demand in Southeast Asia through taxi markets, they are fiercely competing against each other through hydrogen vehicles in the field of future automobiles at the same time.

According to the automobile industry on Oct. 9, Hyundai Motor recently signed a contract to supply a maximum of 3,000 i40 diesel taxis to the ComfortDelGro Group of Singapore by next year. Since Hyundai Motor first made a contract to supply taxis with ComfortDelGro Group in late 2006, Hyundai has supplied an average of 2,000 Sonata taxis every year from 2007 until last year. Hyundai Motor is very popular in the local taxi market of Singapore. In 2010, the market share of Hyundai Motor exceeded the Crown taxis of Toyota. In Singapore, eight transportation companies currently have about 27,000 taxis, and the ComfortDelGro Group has 16,000 taxis, more than half of the total taxis in Singapore. One hundred percent of the taxi models owned by the ComfortDelGro Group are Hyundai Motor vehicles.

An employee at Hyundai Motor said, “64 percent of the total taxis operated in Singapore will be Hyundai Motor vehicles next year. Once we secure a stable market share in Singapore, we will expand our sales networks to the entire region of Southeast Asia.”

Indonesia has 40 percent (250 million people) of the entire population of Southeast Asia, Japanese automobile brands are occupying 90 percent of the market share. Among this, 40 percent of the market share is occupied by Toyota. Toyota vehicles successfully secured their exclusive positions in Indonesia primarily because Toyota formed a partnership with Blue Bird, the national taxi brand in Indonesia. All vehicles operated by Blue Bird are Toyota models.

Fierce competition between Hyundai Motor and Toyota is expected in the market of environmentally-friendly hydrogen-fueled vehicles next year as well.

At the Paris Motor Show 2014 started on Oct. 4, Toyota displayed FCV, its own mass -produced hydrogen-fueled sedan. Toyota will officially launch this hydrogen car in Japan during the first quarter of next year, and plans to release it in the U.S. and Europe next summer. This hydrogen -fueled vehicle of Toyota is capable of driving about 700km on just one charge. It takes about three minutes to charge the vehicle.

Hyundai Motor became a pioneer of hydrogen-fueled vehicle development worldwide as it already started to sell the Tucson IX Hydrogen Fuel Cell in Korea last April. Hyundai Motor succeeded in 350 atm hydrogen charging for the first in the world, and recently completed development of 700 atm compressed hydrogen tanks.

Hyundai Motor established the mass production system of hydrogen-fueled cars at least two years earlier than major global companies. In fact, Mercedes Benz, General Motors (GM), and Toyota plan to mass-produce hydrogen vehicles after 2015. Hyundai Motor is planning to sell 1,000 hydrogen vehicles worldwide, including in Europe, next year.

The largest difference of Hyundai Motor and Toyota is that Hyundai Motor loaded the hydrogen fuel cell system into its existing small sport utility vehicle Tuscon IX, whereas Toyota developed an exclusive model for hydrogen vehicles. Toyota’s hydrogen car is around 70 million won (US$65,314) and Hyundai Motor's one is 150 million won (US$139,959), more than twice Toyota’s price.

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