Hyundai Motor Group’s bold EV strategy could make it No. 1

For years, I didn’t understand why Toyota executives were terrified of Hyundai Motor Group, which includes Kia and Genesis. Today, I don’t understand why every automaker isn’t.

After decades of steady but unspectacular growth, the South Korean giant appears primed for a leap. Bold engineering choices, daring designs and aggressive investment could lift it to the front of rising electric vehicle sales around the world.

“Hyundai Motor Group already matches perennial powerhouse Toyota when it comes to quality and customer satisfaction,” said Michael Dunne, CEO of ZoZoGO, a consultant specializing in EVs worldwide.  “Now,  Hyundai, Genesis and Kia are racing past Toyota — and many other automakers —  in electric vehicles, design and software.”

“Driving that success is a culture of meticulous, almost fanatic, attention to what makes customers happy. And an eye to the future.”

A history of missteps, a plan for growth

Success isn’t assured. HMG has demonstrated a propensity for shooting itself in the foot.

In the last decade, embarrassments in the U.S. market alone include:

• Cars so easy to hot wire some insurance companies refused to cover them
• Hundreds of millions of dollars in fines for exaggerating fuel economy and violating emission standards
• Recalling 517,000 vehicles that could spontaneously combust
• Replacing thousands of faulty engines in vehicles built 2011-19

Today, the automaker’s operations in China — the biggest EV market — are struggling, Dunne said.

“HMG is flourishing in the U.S. and all major global markets — except China. Rising nationalistic sentiment and much-improved Chinese offerings from the likes of BYD and NIO are winning Chinese consumers away from (global brands). Hyundai-Kia sales in China have dropped by 50% since their peak in 2017.”

Primed for growth

Despite those challenges, Hyundai and Kia’s customer satisfaction scores have been soaring, and newcomer Genesis is challenging established luxury brands — tributes to their vehicles’ looks, value and overall appeal.

Now the automaker’s three brands are combining those virtues with leadership in a key EV attribute: charging time.

HMG plans to invest more than $25 billion in EV and battery production by 2030, when it expects to build 3.6 million EVs around the world.

“Hyundai-Kia is launching vehicles for North America at a faster pace than VW Group or GM,” said John Voelcker, a journalist who has long specialized in EVs.