Hyundai Motor to Invest 60 Trillion KRW in Smart Mobility by 2025

Hyundai Motor Unveils Revised '2025' Strategy
Adding 'Hydrogen' to Mobility Products and Services... Establishing Three Major Businesses
Launches Hydrogen Fuel Cell Brand HTWO... Aiming to Sell 700,000 Units by 2030
Switching All Models to Eco-Friendly Vehicles by 2040
Releases Level 3 New G90 Autonomous Vehicle in Two Years

[Asia Economy Reporter Suyeon Woo] Hyundai Motor Company continues its aggressive investment stance in future core businesses such as UAM and robotics. It also launched the hydrogen fuel cell system brand 'HTWO' and is fostering the hydrogen business as one of its three major businesses to accelerate its transformation into a smart mobility solutions provider. To this end, it plans to invest a total of KRW 60.1 trillion over the next six years until 2025, with more than KRW 4 trillion allocated solely to the hydrogen business sector.

On the 11th, Hyundai Motor held a board meeting and finalized the acquisition of Boston Dynamics, a global robotics development company famous for its 'robot dog.' This is the first large-scale merger and acquisition (M&A) since Chairman Chung Euisun took office at Hyundai Motor Group and was pursued as part of the '2025 Strategy' centered on the group's four major future businesses.

According to the '2025 Strategy' unveiled by Hyundai Motor at the 'CEO Investor Day' the day before, the company plans to newly add hydrogen fuel cells as a major business in addition to existing mobility products and services. In particular, to foster the future hydrogen business, it introduced the hydrogen fuel cell system brand 'HTWO' and announced a goal to sell 700,000 hydrogen fuel cell systems by 2030, focusing on four major bases in Korea, Europe, the United States, and China.

Hyundai Motor also revealed specific mid- to long-term strategies for its core future businesses such as electric vehicles, UAM, and autonomous driving on the same day. First, for electric vehicles, the company set a goal to convert all models sold by 2040 to eco-friendly vehicles and achieve a global electric vehicle market share of 8-10%.

In the autonomous driving sector, Hyundai plans to showcase Level 3 autonomous driving technology, which allows driving without the driver holding the steering wheel, through the new G90 model to be released around 2022. Furthermore, it is developing a 'remote valet function' that enables the vehicle to park and return on its own without driver operation, targeting mass production by 2024.

With the acquisition of Boston Dynamics signaling Hyundai's intention to expand investment in UAM and robotics, the company also announced plans to introduce a hybrid powertrain-equipped cargo unmanned aerial system (UAS) by 2026, the first in the industry. Based on this, Hyundai aims to launch a fully electrified UAM by 2028.

To strengthen capabilities in these future core businesses, Hyundai Motor plans to invest a total of KRW 60.1 trillion by 2025. Although the overall investment scale decreased by about KRW 1 trillion compared to the plan announced at the end of last year due to changes in the business environment following the COVID-19 pandemic, investment in future businesses increased from KRW 20 trillion to KRW 23.5 trillion. In particular, investment in the hydrogen business will increase about sevenfold from the original plan to KRW 4.1 trillion.

Kim Sehun, Executive Vice President and Head of Hyundai Motor's Fuel Cell Business Division, said, "We are developing next-generation fuel cell systems that satisfy performance and durability while enabling reasonably priced hydrogen electric vehicles." He added, "Based on this, we plan to sequentially develop hydrogen fuel cell systems applicable to large commercial vehicles and UAM."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.