Hyundai joins Maruti, Tata in increasing car prices from January

Hyundai Motor India on Tuesday said it will increase prices of its entire product range from next month to primarily offset impact of rising input costs.

"The extent of price increase may vary for different models and fuel types," Hyundai Motor India Ltd (HMIL) said in a statement.

The company, however, did not share details of model wise price change.

The increase has been necessitated on account of rise in input and material costs, it added.

The company is working out on details and would share the details of the model wise price hike later this month.

Maruti Suzuki and Tata Motors have already announced to hike prices from January.

Hyundai plans $51 billion investment in 6 years with focus on e-vehicles

Hyundai Motor plans to invest about 61.1 trillion won ($51.81 billion) between 2020 and 2025, about one-third of the expenditure focused on electric and autonomous vehicles, the company said on Wednesday.

The South Korean carmaker unveiled a "Strategy 2025" roadmap that envisaged annual average spending of 10 trillion won, higher than previous years, and up from a 2018 figure of 6.1 trillion won.

Hyundai will devote about 20 trillion won of the total investment, spread across six years, to future technologies, it added.

It also set an ambitious deadline of 2025 to place itself among the world's top three makers of battery and fuel cell vehicles, with annual sales of 670,000 electric vehicles, including 560,000 battery-based cars.

Hyundai shares were up 2 per cent by 01:36 GMT after the announcement, which included a plan to buy back 259.6 billion won worth of common shares.

Hyundai Foundation to invest Rs 15 L in social ideas developed by students

Hyundai Motor India's philanthropic arm Hyundai Motor India Foundation has launched a new programme - H-Social Creator - to support graduate or post graduate students who develop novel ideas on road safety, environment and clean India, and Hyundai Motor India Foundation will invest Rs 15 lakh as seed capital in these ideas.

The idea should have the power to create a magnanimous impact, the company said in a statement.

The H-Social Creator Programme was first instituted by Hyundai Motor Company in South Korea in 2015.

"The Social Innovation sphere in India has witnessed immense growth in the last one decade. The H-Social Creator will serve as a platform for budding catalysts of social change to be visionaries," S S Kim, MD & CEO, HMIL.

He further said that the company would like to foster new talent by providing them with right mentorship and assets to bring alive their dream cause.

The H-Social Creator will be held in five cities - Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Pune, Bengaluru and Chennai.

Hyundai's Venue becomes leader in utility vehicle segment despite slowdown

Hyundai Motor India Limited's (HMIL) recently launched Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV) Venue has become the highest selling car in Utility Vehicle (UV) segment, overtaking its competitors Maruti Suzuki and Mahindra, despite overall downturn in the automobile industry in India. Hyundai's SUV marketshare has grown to 21 per cent with the combined sale of Venue, Creta and Tucson, said the company.

According to data available, Venue has seen an increase in sale from May, 2019 and has overtook Maruti's Brezza in July, 2019. The sale of Venue grew by 9.3 per cent to 9,585 units in July 2019, as compared to 8,763 units in the previous month, while Brezza has seen a decline of 40 per cent in sales in July to 5,302 units compared to 8,871 units in the month of June, this year. Mahindra's XUV, which has been in the third position in the segment, has seen a decline of 6.82 per cent in July, 2019, to 4,464 units compared to 4,769 units in June.

HMIL, with its four models - Creta, Venue, Tucson and Kona Electric - in the UV segment, stood in the first place in the segment with sales in the wholesale level at 16,234 units. Mahindra with seven models including XUV 500, TUV 300, XUV 300, KUV100, Scorpio, Bolero and Thar stood at the second place with 16,003 units and Maruti, with four models including S-Cross, Brezza, Ertiga and Gypsy, has sold 15,178 units in the month.

HMIL, a late entrant to the UV segment with its first launch in 2015, has become the leader in the segment for the first time due to the high demand of Venue.

Vikas Jain, National Head - Sales of Hyundai Motor India said “We are overwhelmed with 50,000 bookings in just 60 days of its launch and over 35 per cent of customers have preferred the Hyundai’s in house Best in Segment -DCT (Dual Clutch Transmission) Technology. Our SUV market share is now 21 per cent with the combined sales of Venue, Creta and Tucson.”

Maruti has been at the top in the segment after it launched its subcompact SUV Vitara Brezza. It lead the segment in the year 2018-19 with sales of over 1,57,880 units and a marketshare of 44 per cent, said the company officials recently.

HMIL's overall sale has declined by 3.8 per cent in July, at 57,310 units as compared to 59,590 units in the same period last year.

Hyundai eyes mass market for EVs, to develop new platform for India

Hyundai Motor is planning to develop a new electric vehicle (EV) platform for India to address the mass market. The company plans to invest around $200 million to develop the new platform.

"We are working on a (electric) platform, which will be for Indian mass market and it would cost around $200 million," said S S Kim, MD and CEO of Hyundai Motor India, adding that the product may be launched in the next 3-4 years.

The Korean automobile conglomerate recently launched an electric car named Kona in India. The car received around 120 bookings in 15 days, including 33 from Bangalore and 20 from Chennai.

With Kona catering to the high-end market, the company wants to introduce a EV product which will address the mass segment.

To do so, Kim says there is a need for more localisation. "Currently the localisation is too low since suppliers have not geared up, but as volume grows it will evolve," he said.

He, however, declined to reveal the price point the new product would target.

Early this year, Hyundai signed a MoU with Tamil Nadu to invest Rs 7,000 crore to develop new products and expand capacity through brownfield expansion in the state.

The company's plant in the state is said to be running at nearly full capacity, mostly due to growing SUV demand. The monthly production of SUVs has gone up from around 9000 to nearly 17000.

Kim is optimistic about the future of Hyundai and the Indian passenger car industry, which he said will be driven by rural demand for the next few years.