Hyundai Motor Group seems to have pretty futuristic ideas in its pipeline, going by the recent New Year kickoff meeting of the company addressed by the vice-chairman of the group, Chung Eui-sun, on Tuesday. When we say futuristic, it mostly encompasses all the major inventions happening in the field of mobility, including autonomous ride sharing service, electric vehicles and even hydrogen fuel cell run vehicles, which the company is aiming for in its short and long range plans.
¡°We face entirely new game rules,¡± the employees of the South Korean auto maker were told by Chung at the meeting. Chung, who was addressing his first annual meeting since his promotion back in September, mentioned that the company is planning to run a pilot test of self-driving or autonomous taxis on the roads of South Korea by as early as 2021. For the required technology for this, Hyundai will be looking to partner with the globally leading players in the field.
Hyundai Ioniq (Reuters)
In addition, Hyundai also aims to be the leader in the electric vehicle (EV) space soon. It aims to produce 44 different models of EVs for this by 2025, an ambitious goal considering that the company currently has a handful of such products in its portfolio. But once the company¡¯s own EV technology is mainstream and can be replicated with ease, using it in different formats should not be an issue. The group also aims to sell 1.67 million units of these EVs a year.
Hyundai does not want to limit itself to EVs as an alternate to IC engine vehicles though. Chung said that the group will also be working towards hydrogen fuel cells to be used to run vehicles. For those unaware, hydrogen fuel cells use hydrogen as a fuel to run the vehicles, just like the CNG, and only produce water as a byproduct in the process, as opposed to the environmentally harmful gases released by Petrol or Diesel.
Hyundai Autonomous Vehicle showcased at 87th International Motor Show back in 2017 (Reuters)
To work towards bringing the technology to the mainstream, Hyundai will be investing 8 trillion won (more than INR 50,000 crore) in the same. No timeline of when the technology will find itself powering a car on the road has been provided by Chung as of now though.