Hyundai News:Hyundai Motor Engine Development Closes as Hyundai Pauses Hydrogen Development Too!

[G. David Felt]

This news comes from two sources, Korean Economic Daily and Chosun Biz web sites. The south Korean auto company Hyundai has confirmed that they have immediately stopped all development on new ICE engines in order to accelerate the transformation to EV manufacturing.

Effective December 23rd, Hyundai Motor Co. the group's largest automaker closed the engine development division at their R&D center. The 12,000 researchers have all been reassigned. Per the R&D chief Park Chung-kook stated to employees in an internal email: “Our own engine development is a great achievement, but we must change the system to create future innovation based on the great asset from the past.”

The move by the global auto industry to EVs is moving at a speed that has caught many legacy ICE suppliers off guard as Hyundai has stated starting in 2030, they will only sell EVs globally. The Motor Group started in 1983 by the grandfather of Hyundai Motor Group in order to make their own engines rather than buy from Japan or America. After 40 years, the engine development division is shut down so that the EV development division can be enhanced with additional researchers and grow at warp speed.

The bulk of the 12,000 researchers have been moved to various electrification teams leaving a skeleton group behind to modify and address needs of modifying existing engines for the next 8yrs.

A new battery development center has been created to be added to the EV development division. Park has stated that the goal is to develop innovative EVs that will dominate the global market from entry level auto's that Hyundai made its name on to luxury level auto's.

The R&D center will also now focus on procuring the raw materials for battery and semiconductor development as to NOT rely on semiconductors out of China or elsewhere in the world from 3rd party suppliers. This change will allow a streamlining of project management teams and product integration teams to accelerate EV development.

Only days after the ICE development ending, Chosun Biz published that Hyundai has put all Hydrogen development on hold. A few years back, Hyundai announced they were working on their 3rd generation of Hydrogen autos and fuel cells with a goal of launching a global auto for sale in 2025.

Fuel cells are the heart of Hydrogen powered auto's and yet after select testing in Korea and other global select markets of both Hydrogen passenger autos and commercial trucks. September, Hyundai unveiled its third-generation fuel cell auto the Hydrogen Nexo.

The Hydrogen fuel-cell powertrain system had been reduced by 30% in size and output plus durability had increased 3 times and they expected to reduce costs by 50% by 2025.

However due to technical challenges and a lack of market interest globally the further development has been suspended indefinitely and all researchers will be assigned to new tasks in the EV R&D division. The NEXO only sold 8,206 Hydrogen autos in South Korea in 2021 and even less globally.

As such, it seems the future of Hyundai, Kia and Genesis auto's will be EV.

Hyundai Motor closes engine development division - KED Global

Genesis hydrogen car development put on hold... “There is little marketability due to the limitations of technology” - Chosun Biz (biz-chosun-com.translate.goog)

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[balthazar]

Hopefully for them, they'll experience a LOT less motor failure and fires going to BE vs. the massive recalls on their IC motive units.

[oldshurst442]

There goes another transport vehicle manufacturer for the masses that will cease, immediately mind you-how immediate?  December 23rd of last year  >HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL, BTW!!!<...their development of new internal combustion engines to concentrate their time and money on electric motorvation.  Way of the future is what they, and the others that stopped their ICE development call it.  

I know you guys could read, you guys didnt need me to re-hash the OP, but I wanted to repeat the message.

 

Stoppage of new development does not mean stoppage of production, however.   That means that if consumers dont buy into EVs, there will always be an option to buy an ICE because production hasnt ceased...

But...since development of new internal combustion will cease to evolve and remain with early 2020s tech, and electricals WILL evolve and revolve and be improved and innovated, and by the time 2035 rolls around, electricals will be sooooo THAT much more ahead with improvements made from just about the entirety of the industry, improving and copying and innovating and improving and copying and innovating from all the manufactures EV development, I personally dont think the masses will care too much about IC engines come 2035...

Another point I wanna make:  

Generations, as in the newer generation of consumer... the Gen Y, Gen Z and whatever Gen will succeed the Z Gen, these consumers, dont really give a shyte about engine noises and gasoline fumes. These guys, these guys are already used to batteries and battery levels and chargers and most importantly, cordless charging and streaming and all that. All the phobias us old fogeys fear about electricals, these guys dont have ANY of that B.S.

Boomers?  These guys by the time 2035 rolls around, the older of these guys will already have 1 foot in their grave.   The younger of these guys, well, some of these guys were muscle car hatin' hippies anyway.   Some of these guys LOVE their V8 muscle cars...but...by the time 2035 rolls around, there wont BE any V8 muscle cars to buy.  Oh...they COULD continue to hang on to their Hellcats, but either these Hellcats will be trash or they will be garage queens.  You wont be seeing Hellcats on the roads too much.

Gen Xers?

These guys are into SUVs and CUVs mostly today.  And if they arent, they are used to shytty 4 cyclinder cars when they were teenagers, even shyttier turbo 4s while they were family men.  Their Gen X wives?   Soccer mom SUVs and CUVs is what they gobble up as their main transport pods. 

Meaning...Boomers and Gen Xers, the MAIN voice of EV denial will NOT be a relevant factor in the deciding force of whether EVs will succeed in the market place or not. 

Price?

That Hyundai Ioniq 5 that is pictured above is 50 000 dollars plus Canadian. Yeah...a  tad on the expensive side. But its also well equipped and has features that beef up the price to be that high.

Features that have been brainwashed in our heads that we need when we dont need. Blame the boomers who eventually became yuppies and their Gen X counterparts that have been spoiled rotten for these kinds of useless gimmicky tech in our vehicles.  Granted, most of that useless tech is also offered in less expensive ICE cars...but the message here is that EVs do NOT NEED to be THAT expensive. Those high prices are not entirely because of EV tech being expensive to produce and manufacture...

What DID I wanna say at the end of the day?

I dont know really.  I just wanted to get that of my chest.  

Again, what is it that I wanted to get off my chest?

  Dont really know.  But it is one view on how Im thinking about our EV future. 

 

 

[G. David Felt]

@oldshurst442I expect a very de-contented entry level BEV from Hyundai / Kia. I think this is what will get BEVs moving to all income brackets. I also think this will allow Hyundai / Kia to do one thing the late Grandpa / Founder of Hyundai Motor Group wanted which was to surpass Toyota.

They are moving into the future and will pull others with them, I think. Yes, the Ioniq 5 is a $50K BEV in your country, but that is a mid-range auto today that will get things going and then lower and higher as we have seen in Genesis will help pay off the R&D costs.

[balthazar]

We don’t yet have any evidence anyone is making a profit on BEs (Tesla will be a net negative for years and years to come). Keeping IC in production is insurance toward forward survival.

Frankly, ‘yearly advancement’ is marketing spin; if the average vehicle on the road is like 12 years old, a 2022 is still 100% viable in 2034 (and 2044). You’re told you ‘need’ power ashtrays and you’re ‘behind the curve’ withput them, but they need you to buy-buy-buy.

[G. David Felt]

7 hours ago, balthazar said:

You’re told you ‘need’ power ashtrays and you’re ‘behind the curve’ without them,

That is a boomer thinking that you need power ashtrays in an era of smoking is bad where ashtrays are an option you have to pay extra for now.

[balthazar]

Huh?

[regfootball]

its pointless to gravitate to only one means of propulsion.   we should be encouraging use, and sales, and R&D of several forms of vehicle propulsion in the interest to FUEL DIVERSITY.

gas, diesel, fuel cell, E85, simple hybrid, plug in hybrid, full BEV, all have a place and all our eggs should never be in just one basket.  And hey, let the market decide, subsidize all equally.

How about planning for how all that electricity is going to be produced?

Individual freedom of mobilization should still be promoted, therefore we can't turn to making cars too expensive for everyone.  

Walk the talk and let more nuclear plants be opened if you want the electrics so bad.