Hyundai Motor Group has promised to spend some 24 trillion won ($18.2 billion) between now and 2030 as it seems much of the global automotive industry is making the shift to EVs. The South Korean automaker is among a handful of global automakers that have already proven themselves with a current and future portfolio of compelling electric cars.
Hyundai – along with subsidiaries Kia and Genesis – aims to use the large investment to ramp up its EV production, which makes sense since one of the biggest concerns is a lack of availability. While many carmakers are bringing electric vehicles to market, they're not always readily available, and many are only prominent in select areas.
According to Automotive News, Hyundai has also established a long-term goal to become one of the world's top three electric car producers. As US legacy brands like Ford and General Motors compete to overtake Tesla as the world's EV leader, Hyundai joins others, such as Volkswagen, with notable efforts to continue its rise to the top.
Hyundai aims to increase its yearly EV output in Korea to 1.51 million units by the end of the decade, pushing its global EV volume to 3.64 million during the same time frame. If it's successful, its brands could eventually lay claim to about 40% of all EVs produced across the globe.
For perspective, Tesla produced just shy of 1.4 million EVs in 2022 alone, and it may ramp that up to 2 million this year. BYD produced over 900,000 fully electric cars in 2022.
By 2030, Hyundai Motor Group hopes to offer 31 fully electric models. As part of the plan, the company says Kia will be opening a new factory south of Seoul that will produce purpose-built EVs. Meanwhile, Kia will bring the EV9 (above) fully electric three-row SUV to market soon. Hyundai just launched the Ioniq 6 (pictured at the top of the page) and will bring the Ioniq 7 to market in 2024.
Hyundai Motor Group's new announcement further substantiates its previously released plans to offer 17 EVs from Hyundai and Genesis, along with 14 from Kia by 2030. The group also previously said it aimed to produce 3.5 million EVs annually by 2030, so its latest estimate is up, albeit only slightly.
