How Hyundai Motor Group Formulated The Right Electrification Strategy For America

Over the years, Hyundai Motor Group (HMG)–which takes into account the entirety of Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis, has been releasing a whole bunch of award-winning electric vehicles (EVs). It seems that apart from Tesla, the South Korean automotive giant has also been enjoying the limelight as its EVs are snapping up awards, left to right.

However, it’s one thing to win awards, but it’s another for these EVs to be desirable enough to the consumers. Well, it seems that in 2023, HMG is having a good time worldwide and also in the United States. Recent data has suggested that the automotive group is now the second-biggest EV brand in the United States in terms of sales, just behind Tesla. Here’s what HMG did right to leap ahead of the competition.

In order to give you the most up-to-date and accurate information possible, the data used to compile this article was sourced from various manufacturer websites and other authoritative sources, including KED Global, BloombergNEF, Kia, and Hyundai.

Hyundai Motor Group Is Having A Great Time In America

HMG is making great strides in the American automotive market. Their growth over the past few years has been astonishing, with 2023 being another record-breaking moment for HMG. Combined with all three brands, KED Global reports that the South Korean automotive group sold 1.65 million vehicles in 2023, up from 12.1 percent in 2022. That beats its previous record high of 1.49 million units in 2021.

When broken down into three brands, Hyundai saw its U.S. sales rise by 11.5 percent from the previous year to 870,370 examples in 2023. Kia’s U.S. sales increased by 12.8 percent to 782,451 units, and then HMG’s luxury brand Genesis saw its U.S. sales jump by 22.6 percent to 69,175 copies. This is for all types of vehicles sold by the group, but how about its EVs?

The Second Biggest EV Brand In America

Unfortunately, we can’t accurately tell how many EVs the group has sold, because while it breaks down sales of its dedicated EVs like the Hyundai Ioniq 5 or Kia EV6, sales of its models that are sold with an internal combustion engine (ICE) or an electric drivetrain such as the Hyundai Kona and Kia Niro are lumped together. However, according to a report by BloomberNEF’s Corey Cantor, its research reveals that HMG’s EVs accounted for more than eight-percent of all new EVs sold last year.

This puts the South Korean automotive group well ahead of General Motors and Ford in terms of EV sales and just behind Tesla. However, when taking into account just as a brand, Ford is still ahead of Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis. It’s also worth noting the recently-launched Kia EV9 three-row electric SUV because even if it only arrived at dealerships last December, more than 1,000 units managed to make their way into American homes in time for the holidays.

These Models Have Been A Hit To Americans

Of course, credit for this success will be due to its sensational range of EVs, which managed to not only look great but also reinvent the vehicle ownership experience thanks to their clean sheet design and engineering. Leading the electrified vehicle charge.

This is followed by the similarly-sized Kia EV6, whose sales numbers stood at 18,879 copies – which is slightly lower than the 20,498 examples it sold the year prior. We now then migrate to the third best-selling EV of HMG, the Ioniq 6, which is also an award-winning EV that managed to reach 12,999 homes in America last year.

It is, however, worth noting that HMG did not break down the sales of the Niro EV and Kona EV since these have been lumped together with their ICE-powered versions. Also, noteworthy is the sales performance of the three-row Kia EV9, which, as mentioned a while ago, more than 1,000 (1,113 to be precise) units were sold in December, its first month of retail sales.

Going All-In With Well-Engineered EVs

So, what’s the secret sauce to HMG’s electric success in the United States? It all starts with how the brand managed to reinvent the vehicle ownership experience. As you’ll notice, most of its EVs ride on the group’s E-GMP platform–a vehicle architecture that’s centered around the advantages and usability of an EV, which allows them to rethink what a vehicle should be and feel like in the EV age.

EVs That Rethink The Ownership Experience

One of the highlights of the E-GMP platform is its packaging advantage. With its wheels pushed as far out as possible outside the chassis, you are left with an extraordinarily long wheelbase that allows for excellent interior room. In addition, HMG’s EVs also somewhat reinvent the packaging of the drivetrain itself.

In an ICE car, the engine, transmission, driveshaft, and differential are separate components, but HMG managed to reduce the number of components needed in an EV and thus, enables excellent packaging. This explains why EVs like the Ioniq 5 have a generously sized front trunk (assuming you don’t opt for the dual-motor AWD versions).

Apart from the packaging advantages of not having to take into account an ICE, there’s also the new ownership experience provided by the E-GMP platform’s electronics architecture. E-GMP enables bidirectional charging, otherwise known as vehicle-to-load (V2L).

Now, the functionality of this feature probably hasn’t been fully realized by the public yet, but essentially, the E-GMP-based EV can act as an external power source to power appliances during camping, power a house during a power outage, or even trickle charge another EV if needed. That electronics architecture, depending on the variant, can even support up to 350 kW of DC fast charging that allows for a 10 to 80 percent charge in less than 20 minutes, which is still a rarity in EVs nowadays.

It Also Helps These EVs Look Good

Even if an EV manages to be high-tech, well-engineered, and reinvents the ownership experience, no one would buy it if it didn’t look great. Thankfully, most of HMG’s EVs have been highly coveted in terms of style. The Ioniq 5 and Ioniq 6 were both awarded by World Car Awards as the World Car Design of the Year, and both of which also were crowned as the World Car of the Year. The EV6 and EV9 have also been praised for both their design as well as ingenuity by combining style with sustainable interior materials.

There’s also the part that HMG’s EVs can also have a little bit of fun, as the new Ioniq 5 N has been proving to EV naysayers around the world. It’s an EV that does its best to emulate the qualities of a hot hatch with an ICE, and while the idea sounds crazy, the execution by HMG is a masterstroke. The result has been an EV with a lot of character that no one would’ve ever thought Hyundai would be doing.

How Hyundai Motor Group Went Against The Tide

Whilst General Motors and Ford have scaled back on their EV developments as they’ve reported slower sales growth than initially forecasted, it seems HMG didn’t get the memo. Their EV sales are better than ever, and, at least as a group, they’ve soared past both GM and Ford. What gives? What else did HMG do right apart from reinventing vehicle ownership with a dedicated EV architecture as well as beautiful design?

It Helps To Be Well-Priced

One of HMG’s advantages even before the EV era has been its pricing. Overall, HMG’s cars tend to be priced a little more aggressively compared to Japanese, American, and European competitors. Though sometimes not the lowest priced, HMG’s cars tend to offer generous equipment levels and warranties–the latter of which is one of the longest in the American automotive industry. Kia offers an optional 10-year/100,000-mile warranty program, which is unheard of with other automotive brands.

We reported last year on how HMG is set to be a dominant force in the EV world, and part of the reason is that how the automotive group is extremely vertically integrated. This means that while traditional car manufacturing tends to favor outsourcing many vehicle components, HMG makes a huge chunk of its components by itself.

This, in turn, also makes them a supplier to other automotive brands, and that ownership of the supply chain means the company is more resistant to economic disruptions as well as having more control over the pricing of each part. Now, as for pricing, let’s take a look at the compact electric crossover segment, one of the most popular EV segments, and take a look at how competitively priced the EV6 and Ioniq 5 are.

Price Comparison

(Prices sourced from respective automakers)

No EV Sales Slowdown For Hyundai Motor Group

Lately, we’ve been reporting that General Motors and Ford have reported slowing EV sales in the United States. Again, to be clear, it doesn’t mean that EV sales are shrinking. It’s just that, the rate of growth is slower than expected and compared to what these companies have forecasted.

However, it seems HMG’s bet by going all-in on EVs has clearly paid off. HMG’s EV sales in the United States grew by 60 percent in 2023, which means that by making EVs that are well-engineered, impeccably designed, and competitively priced, you are sure to attract a good number of buyers to showrooms. All of these seem to point out that a South Korean automotive giant probably knows the American market’s preferences more than America’s own brands, huh?

Further looking at the brand’s long-term commitment to North America, HMG recently broke ground for the construction of a new battery and EV manufacturing plant located in Savannah, Georgia. The manufacturing plant will meet HMG’s goals of selling more than three million EVs annually by 2030. The Kia EV9 and Hyundai Ioniq 7, both of which are massive three-row EVs that have been designed with American buyers in mind, will be manufactured here, which will most likely enable these electric SUVs to be eligible for the $7,500 federal tax credit.