Hyundai To Go Ahead With Eco Cars

Hyundai Motor Group, the world’s No. 5 automaker, will go ahead with plans to develop environment-friendly cars despite the segment’s low profitability and an industry downturn, a senior executive said on Thursday.

Yang Woong-chul, president of the group’s auto research & development division, also said the group saw almost “no problem” to its business from the won currency’s recovery trend. A weaker won has helped Hyundai and other South Korean automakers by enhancing price competitiveness and boosting profits from overseas markets.
“It is difficult to get profits from those kinds of cars. But we have to go that way eventually so will go ahead with our eco-friendly model plans,” Yang said in an interview with Reuters on the sidelines of the Seoul Motor Show.

The group usually allocates 5 percent of sales for R&D and spends 20-30 percent of that budget on environment-friendly models such as hybrid cars, said Yang, who is in charge of auto technology for South Korea’s top two car makers — Hyundai Motor Co and Kia Motors Corp.

Hyundai plans to start mass production of hybrid cars next year and to begin mass production of plug-in hybrids from late 2012.

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