Not Wanting To Lose From Elon Musk's Tesla, Hyundai Increases Production Of Electric Cars

JAKARTA - The South Korean automotive company, Hyundai Motor Group, feels threatened due to Tesla's presence in the Ginseng Country market. The presence of the Tesla electric car in the South Korean market is indeed a slap in itself for Hyundai.

Quoted from Reuters, Wednesday, July 29, Hyundai will not remain silent. Hyundai said it was trying to compete with Tesla in the future green car market, both in South Korea, the United States and globally.

Hyundai plans to release two special production lines for electric vehicles. One line next year, and another in 2024.

Hyundai boss, Euisun Chung some time ago held a meeting with Samsung, LG and SK Group. This is in the context of working together to make batteries and supporting components for future cars.

Hyundai also reportedly wants to secure the supply of electric car batteries. The reason is, the battery is the most expensive part in an electric car unit.

These manufacturers have also supplied battery components to Tesla, Volkswagen and GM. Hyundai said that working with Korean battery suppliers aims to increase the production of its electric cars efficiently.

The seriousness of Hyundai was proven after the company announced plans to sell 1 million electric cars a year. Hyundai also targets to have a 10 percent market share in the world by 2025.

According to data from industry consultant LMC Automotive, Hyundai sold about 86,434 EV batteries last year. These results are above VW sales of 73,278 units. However, Hyundai is still below Tesla which is able to sell around 367,500.

For information, in 2010 Hyundai built 230 electric cars for the government. However, at that time the infrastructure for electric cars was still so scarce that they turned their attention to hydrogen-fueled cars.

On the other hand, Tesla immediately burst with its electric car products and dominated the market in South Korea, beating Hyundai as a local manufacturer there.

Lucid startup vice president who previously worked at Tesla and Ford, Peter Hasenkamp, said conventional carmakers are having a harder time transitioning into the era of electric cars.

"Actually, there are several generations in big car companies who are able to master electric cars. However, it is still much more difficult than they think," he said.