Electric vehicle sales may be a little down, but Hyundai isn't stopping. The South Korea-based automaker is “doubling down” on its investment in electric vehicles, including a $7.6 billion dedicated manufacturing facility in Georgia, Hyundai Motor America CEO Randy Parker said.
“While other manufacturers are backing away from their electrification strategy, we remain focused on our products,” Parker said in an interview this week with The edge. “And our products have done extremely well in the market.”
Those products include the popular Hyundai Ioniq 5 and Ioniq 6, as well as a recently refreshed Kona Electric. And there's also the recently launched performance-based Ioniq 5 N, which recently won the 2024 World Performance Car award.
While other automakers struggle with sluggish demand, Hyundai's electric vehicles have been selling strongly. The company sold 14,798 electric vehicles in March 2024 across its three battery-electric models – a 53 percent increase over the number sold the previous year. Other companies have seen sales decline, prompting them to delay factory plans or withdraw investments.
But that being said, the company (which recently emerged as No. 3 in the world in terms of sales, behind Toyota and Volkswagen, it is not entirely immune to external forces fighting the shift towards an all-electric future. Globally, Hyundai sold 153,519 electrified models in the first quarter of 2024, including hybrids, plug-in hybrids, battery electric vehicles and fuel cell electric vehicles. This represents a decrease of 4.8 percent compared to the same period last year. And its overall operating profits fell 2.3 percent year over year.
Parker said the domestic outlook still looked optimistic. “I'm not in a position to talk about the global balance, but let me just say that we are doing well in the United States.”
Photo by Andrew Hawkins/The Verge
In the United States, Parker said the company is working to address frustrations that many people have said prevent them from purchasing an electric vehicle, specifically around pricing and charging availability. He cited a “very aggressive 24-month lease program” for the Ioniq 5 and 6. The vehicles themselves have “class-leading range”: up to 303 miles for the Ioniq 5 and up to 360 miles for some versions of the Ioniq 6 . – to address anxiety around charging. And both vehicles feature 800-volt architectures, which can add 100 miles of range in just seven minutes, depending on charger speed.
“We are trying to make driving an electric vehicle affordable”
“We're trying to make driving an electric vehicle affordable,” Parker said, “but at the same time eliminating some of those objections when it comes to range and charging.”
Also on the horizon is Hyundai's partnership with Tesla to give its customers access to the company's Supercharger network. Parker said current Hyundai EV owners will have access to Tesla Superchargers in late 2024, but adapters won't start shipping in the mail until the first quarter of 2025.
Tesla recently went through a major round of layoffs, with its Supercharger team particularly hard hit. Experts have raised concerns about the future reliability of the company's EV chargers given the loss of experience and workforce, but Parker said Hyundai is “still committed” to its partnership with the company. “They haven't given me any reason to doubt our strategy going forward,” he added.
There are other obstacles. Hyundai electric vehicles are manufactured in South Korea, making them ineligible for the $7,500 federal electric vehicle tax credit. But that could be short-lived as the company's Georgia plant finishes construction, and the first electric vehicles are expected to roll off the assembly line in the fourth quarter of this year. In addition to Hyundai, the factory will also produce electric vehicles for Kia and Genesis.
There could also be employment challenges on the horizon. The United Auto Workers, fresh off its victory over the Big Three national automakers as well as a successful unionization vote at a Volkswagen plant in Tennessee, is targeting more Southern factories to organize. including Hyundai. Parker said Hyundai prides itself on its “very strong culture,” but said any unionization vote would ultimately be up to workers.
“The decision to be represented by a union is entirely up to the team members and so far they have spoken and I will leave it at that,” he said.
Regardless of how that plays out, Hyundai's future will be electric. The company may need to sell many hybrid and gasoline cars before the full switch can be made, but Parker is convinced it is headed in the right direction.
“It's a transition like anything else, you know what I mean?” he said. “People are moving from rotary phones to iPhones. I mean, it's just going to happen. And, for me, I would say that the future is electric and, in some respects, we are already late.”
