Hyundai Motor to invest $7.4 bn in US on EV production, hydrogen & UAM biz

Hyundai Motor Group will invest $7.4 billion to produce electric vehicles and establish hydrogen and urban air mobility infrastructure in the United States over the next four years.

The South Korean auto conglomerate Thursday announced its investment plan, timed with President Moon Jae-in¡¯s state visit to the United States next Friday.

Hyundai Motor Group Chairman Chung Euisun last month made a visit to the U.S. after his formal ascension to the helm of the Korean auto giant and toured its manufacturing plant in Alabama.

Through the investment, Hyundai Motor Co. and Kia Corp. plan to turn out vehicles based on their self-developed EV platform E-GMP in the U.S. for supplies to the North American market. The models and capacity will depend on the market condition and U.S. green vehicle initiative progress.

Chung Euisun. [Photo by Hyundai Motor Group]

The expansion is to ride on the fast migration to EVs under Joe Biden presidency. Industry experts expect the U.S. EV market to enlarge to 2.4 million units in 2025, 4.8 million units in 2030, and 8 million units in 2035. The EV share in the U.S. as result is estimated to grow fast to 25-30 percent by 2030 from 2 percent last year, according to market research firm IHS Markit.

Biden earlier announced a $174 billion investment plan for EVs and charging facilities, plus replacement of all state, federal vehicles with locally produced EVs. The United Auto Workers (UAW) union has been arguing tax subsidies for EV become restricted to wheels produced on U.S. territory.

The group assured the U.S. investment plan won¡¯t affect its EV project at home and that Korea will remain as the core in EV production.

Hyundai Motor Group at the same time will strengthen partnership with U.S. government and companies to establish hydrogen value chain there.

It will cooperate in hydrogen cars and hydrogen fuel cells technology innovation with the U.S. Department of Energy and push ahead with hydrogen charging stations assessment, logistics transportation at ports using hydrogen trucks, pilot projects for commercialization of hydrogen trucks and supply of hydrogen fuel cell system with U.S. players.

The Korean auto group currently is preparing a project to evaluate the hydrogen truck charging infrastructure with a U.S. company and a new pilot project for logistics transportation using hydrogen trucks. In the second half of the year, it will initiate another pilot project for commercial use of hydrogen trucks with a big logistics company.

Hyundai Motor Co. teamed up with American engine maker Cummins Inc. in 2019 to collaborate on supplying fuel cell powertrains to commercial vehicle makers in North America. It continues with exploration of other partnership and investment and business opportunities in UAM, robotics and self driving.

Hyundai Motor shares were trading 0.65 percent lower at 228,000 won in Seoul at 10:58 a.m. Friday, while Kia shares were up 1.22 percent at 82,800 won.

[¨Ï Maeil Business Newspaper & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]