Dive Brief:
- Hyundai Motor Group plans to invest 68 trillion won ($50 billion) and hire 80,000 employees in South Korea through 2026, according to a press release Wednesday.
- The company will focus its investments and hiring on electrification, software-defined vehicles, autonomous driving, robotics and advanced air mobility.
- Over half the new hires — about 44,000 people — will work on electrification, including “large-scale hiring” to build and operate new electric vehicle plants, and SDVs, according to the release.
Dive Insight:
Like other vehicle manufacturers, including Nissan and Toyota, Hyundai continues to invest in EVs, even as competition increases, prices fall and demand softens in the near term.
Hyundai plans to sell more than 30 all-electric models by 2030 and produce 1.5 million EVs in South Korea annually. In 2023, the company sold a combined 695,000 hybrid, electric, and fuel-cell vehicles worldwide, a 37.1% year-over-year increase.
Earlier this year, Hyundai Motor Co. and Kia Corp., both part of Hyundai Motor Group, announced a reorganization of their research and development unit and a new advanced vehicle platform division to support the development of SDVs and mobility solutions.
Other automakers, including Stellantis and Toyota, have announced similar plans to advance software-based vehicle architectures and improve connectivity, features and software-based subscription services to boost revenue and profits.
