Chairman Euisun Chung delivered a New Year’s message to Hyundai Motor Group’s (the Group) global employees, outlining the company’s strategic direction and commitments for the year 2021 plus.
He spoke of Hyundai’s future vision, customer-first philosophy, quality-innovation drive and direction for elevating its corporate culture, as they prepare to be at the forefront of the future mobility industry.
“We should all stay true to our mission—realizing humanity’s dream of ‘safe and free mobility as well as a peaceful life,’” Chairman Chung stressed.
He also emphasized the importance of making bold progress in eco-friendliness, future technology, and business competitiveness. In particular, the enduring need for prioritizing “quality and safety” was highlighted, as Chung urged all Group staff and business partners to collaborate to “make quality and safety a top priority.”
Year of inflection point
“In the post-pandemic era, social values and lifestyles different from the past will prevail,” the Chairman said. “As a result, only those companies prepared for continuous transformations will survive and grow.”
He also expressed confidence that 2021 will be a decisive year for Hyundai Motor Group as a catalyst for long-term sustainable investments and innovations. “We have to therefore think of 2021 as an inflection point for shaping our future growth and prepare ourselves to become the first mover in a new era.”
He presented a vision for transforming the Group into a new growth engine by expanding market share in the eco-friendly market, securing future technology capabilities and strengthening business competitiveness in collaboration with all the members of the Group.
Electrification leadership
“With the launch of new vehicles based on the recently released electric vehicle platform, the E-GMP (Electric-Global Modular Platform), we plan to provide attractive eco-friendly mobility options that reflect customers’ diverse tastes and needs at more reasonable prices,” the Chairman said. The Group’s vision is to become a top-tier global eco-friendly brand.
“Furthermore, our hydrogen fuel cell technology will be expanded to diverse mobility and industrial sectors to help achieve carbon neutrality under the ‘HTWO (Hydrogen + Humanity)’ brand,” he added.
Hyundai will concentrate efforts to become a global electric vehicle powerhouse by launching dedicated electric vehicles built on the E-GMP, including Hyundai Motor’s IONIQ 5, Kia’s crossover electric vehicle and Genesis luxury brand’s crossover electric vehicles.
They also plan to expand their battery electric vehicle lineup from the current eight models to 23 by 2025 and sell 1 million units annually in global markets.
It will also accelerate the building of EV infrastructure. The Group will also accelerate the creation of a hydrogen energy ecosystem. It will expand the supply of hydrogen fuel cell systems with the world’s best technology as power sources for ships, generators, and trains as well as global automakers. The Group recently introduced a dedicated HTWO brand for fuel cell systems as part of such efforts.
Partnering with global companies specializing in hydrogen, energy and logistics, they will aim to take the lead in hydrogen-related projects.
Safe and innovative mobility technologies
In terms of securing future technology capabilities, the Chairman said, “We will realize the safest and most innovative mobility technology by strengthening our autonomous driving, connectivity and software capabilities. We will continue to invest in new growth fields such as urban air mobility (UAM) and robotics to expand the realm of new mobility in the near future.”
Hyundai Motor Group will apply Level 3 autonomous driving technology to mass production models in 2022 and push for commercialization projects for autonomous driving technologies i.e. robotaxi services in 2023.
The Group will also focus on core technologies for next-generation software—vehicle software that closely interacts with vehicle driving assistance, precision map-linked navigation, and various connected and infotainment services to provide the best convenience and safety to customers.
The development of the UAM product lineup, encompassing both passenger and cargo transportation markets, is also speeding up.
In the robotics area, Hyundai’s wearable robot technology and industrial and logistics automation technology are expected to maximize synergies with Boston Dynamics’ innovative capabilities. Robotics technology will also be applied to various mobility areas—autonomous driving, UAM, and PBV (Purpose Built Vehicle).
Re strengthening business competitiveness, Chairman Chung said, “We will rationalize the Group’s business portfolio—lay the foundation for sustainable growth by continuously discovering new growth engines that would meet the industry’s paradigm shift.”
Quality and safety first
“All our activities would be meaningless without quality and safety—the prerequisites for serving our customers,” Chairman Chung noted. “It should be always remembered that quality and safety are not the domains of any particular fields of our operations. Customers will only give us their trust when all Hyundai Motor Group members and our business partners work together to make quality and safety a top priority”
With regards to the Group’s social responsibility, he said, “I kindly ask all of you to always prioritize our customers and humanity in your daily operations, so we can maximize our shareholder value. Please think hard about how we can contribute to our partners, as well as various neighbours, communities and the environment.”
