He said that the scale and scope of the Hyundai Motor Group and its affiliates across a huge range of industries – including robotics, software, construction, electronics and engineering – gives its car-making division a vertical-integration advantage that means it can make decisions faster and more efficiently respond to changes in its key global markets.
“The agility is key, because we know there are geopolitical uncertainties and regulation is changing, so we need to be able to have this agility,” said Martinet.
He pointed to the fact that the Ioniq 3 will be built alongside the similar-sized petrol i20 in Turkey as an example of how Hyundai is “trying to get the best of both worlds”.
“We have the flexibility to ramp one up and ramp one down, depending on what the market is asking for,” he said.
Around 80% of Hyundai’s European models currently offer an electrified powertrain, and the company plans to boost that to 100% by 2027 – although all of the cars it currently sells in the UK are at least mildly hybridised, so it remains to be seen how exactly that pledge will manifest.
The company recorded significant growth in electrified vehicle sales in Europe last year, driven mainly by EVs, which clocked a substantial 48% uplift in the region – in part due to the launch of new models including the Ioniq 9, Inster and updated Ioniq 6 – to give the company an 18% EV mix.
Martinet hailed this as a significant achievement for Hyundai, saying: “I prefer to give money to customers and dealers [rather] than giving it to competitors, and I think that the fact we achieved our CO2 emissions in Europe on our own, without pooling with any other brand, shows that our approach, not only to EVs but [also] to XEVs [mild hybrids], HEVs and PHEVs is the right one.”
Hyundai’s HEV and PHEV sales were up 11% last year – uplifts that came in the context of the company claiming a 4.5% share of the European car market, with 603,542 sales.
Almost a sixth of those were in the UK, where Hyundai moved from ninth to sixth place in the manufacturer rankings, with just over 93,000 units sold – making it the company’s most important market in the region.
Martinet projected that Hyundai’s European sales figures will remain stable next year before climbing significantly in 2027 as a result of the new model introductions.
