According to insiders, Hyundai has halved the number of its internal combustion engines. This is intended to free up resources for ramping up electromobility.
That said two people close to the South Korean automaker told the Reuters news agency. The top management had already launched the plan in March.
“It is an important economic decision that primarily frees up development capacities for the rest: electric motors, batteries, fuel cells,” said one of the insiders. Hyundai has already stopped developing new drive trains for combustion engines. In the summer, the Ioniq 5, the first car based on Hyundai’s new electric car platform, will hit the market.
All power in electric drives
The company will present its strategy to switch to purely electric drives within the next six months. When asked, Hyundai did not specifically comment on its combustion engine plans, but stated that the business with environmentally friendly drives should be accelerated. The South Koreans named the year 2040 as the target date for the switch to purely electric drives.
The group includes Hyundai Motor, Kia and Genesis. The company plans to sell around one million electric cars annually by 2025, which will bring it to a market share of around ten percent for electric vehicles.
Other manufacturers also say goodbye to burners
Other car manufacturers are also saying goodbye to the development of new combustion engines. Shortly before the merger with Fiat to form Stellantis, PSA announced that it would no longer invest in gasoline and diesel engines. Daimler recently launched new engines that, according to top managers, should bring the company through the electrification process. Volvo has set an end date for combustion engines for the year 2030, by then Ford wants to get by in Europe without fossil fuels.