Hyundai Motor Group Govt Chairman Chung Euisun applauds whereas delivering congratulatory remarks on the groundbreaking ceremony for Hyundai-POSCO Louisiana Metal in Donaldsonville, La., Sept. 4. Courtesy of Hyundai Motor
Hyundai Motor Group Govt Chairman Chung Euisun marks six years on the helm on Wednesday, spearheading the automaker’s transformation into a world top-three auto participant by gross sales and steering it right into a key future mobility participant specializing in robotics, autonomous driving and synthetic intelligence (AI).
The subsequent part of his management, nevertheless, will hinge on whether or not the group can flip its bodily AI ambitions into worthwhile companies. Chung can also be tasked with addressing mounting strain on its core automotive operations and labor relations.
Since taking the highest put up in 2020, Chung has overseen Hyundai Motor and Kia’s rise to the world’s third-largest automotive group by car gross sales, behind Toyota and Volkswagen. The group maintained that rating for 4 consecutive years by way of 2025. Hyundai Motor and Kia’s mixed annual gross sales additionally surpassed the symbolic mark of 300 trillion received ($223 billion) for the primary time final 12 months.
The enlargement displays a method that mixed electrification with a stronger give attention to high-margin automobiles, together with SUVs and Genesis luxurious fashions. Hyundai Motor Group’s devoted electrical car (EV) platform, E-GMP, helped broaden its EV lineup, whereas a diversified powertrain technique has allowed it to capitalize on rising hybrid demand.
Hyundai Motor Group Govt Chair Chung Euisun, fourth from proper, poses with the group’s key executives, celebrating the debut of Genesis GV90 Neolun full-size luxurious SUV in San Francisco, Aug. 19. Courtesy of Genesis
Within the first half of this 12 months, Hyundai Motor’s world hybrid gross sales rose 18 % year-on-year to 363,000 items, whereas Kia’s climbed 47 % to some 316,000. Genesis, a model Chung has championed since its launch, surpassed 1.5 million cumulative world gross sales in January.
“In contrast with main world automakers, one in all Chung’s most important achievements has been accelerating the shift to electrification and constructing a complete lineup of inexpensive EVs and hybrids throughout Hyundai Motor and Kia,” an official from the auto trade stated.
But Chung is more and more positioning the group for a future by which competitiveness will depend upon greater than car gross sales.
At an AI summit in San Francisco in July, he stated Hyundai Motor Group was shifting past conventional manufacturing to grow to be a bodily AI options supplier, increasing into autonomous driving, robotics and AI-powered factories.
The imaginative and prescient builds on investments made below his management. The group established Motional, the carmaker’s U.S. autonomous car arm, in 2020, and bought Boston Dynamics in 2021 to strengthen its robotics capabilities.
The group has additionally targeted on creating car software program and autonomous driving methods by buying 42dot in 2022. Strategic partnerships with world know-how corporations, together with Nvidia and Waymo, have additional expanded its entry to AI and autonomous driving capabilities.
The group has additionally begun constructing a deeper industrial ecosystem round its automotive operations throughout the globe. In Louisiana in the US, Hyundai Metal not too long ago broke floor on an electrical arc furnace metal plant, as a part of the group’s push to hyperlink steelmaking, components manufacturing and car manufacturing in the US.
These investments mirror Chung’s ambition to make Hyundai Motor Group a technology-driven industrial firm reasonably than merely a car producer. However the scale of the transformation additionally raises questions on execution, funding returns and the power of the present enterprise to finance new progress engines.
Robotics and autonomous driving stay capital-intensive fields by which industrial returns can take years to materialize. Hyundai should show that its investments can translate into measurable productiveness features, recurring income and sustainable income, reasonably than counting on technological milestones and long-term projections.
An Atlas humanoid robotic learns automotive manufacturing duties at Hyundai Motor Group Metaplant America within the U.S. state of Georgia, Sept. 21. Courtesy of Hyundai Motor
Labor relations current one other rapid problem. Hyundai Motor’s union staged a full-scale strike this 12 months after wage negotiations stalled, marking the primary such motion since 2016. The ensuing manufacturing disruptions are estimated to have triggered greater than 2.3 trillion received in cumulative misplaced gross sales.
The dispute highlights a pressure on the coronary heart of Chung’s transformation agenda. As AI and robotics reshape manufacturing, Hyundai will want larger flexibility in manufacturing and workforce administration. Extended labor battle might complicate the operational adjustments required to deploy new applied sciences and enhance productiveness.
The group should additionally navigate tariffs, regional competitors and the price of increasing manufacturing nearer to main markets. Its investments within the U.S. and India are supposed to strengthen native manufacturing and market entry, however further capability alone won’t assure stronger profitability.
Hyundai Motor Group Govt Chair Chung Euisun, proper, talks with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on the San Francisco AI Summit, Sept. 24. Korea Occasions photograph by Wang Tae-seok
Each 42dot and Motional stay unprofitable, regardless of continued funding in autonomous driving analysis. Hyundai Motor Group continues to be seen as lagging behind its rivals within the race to commercialize the know-how.
“Bodily AI might present Hyundai Motor Group with one other progress engine past automobiles, however turning that imaginative and prescient right into a worthwhile enterprise would require technological independence, disciplined capital allocation and stronger execution throughout the group,” one other trade official stated.
Six years after taking the helm, Chung has established Hyundai Motor Group as a world automotive heavyweight. His subsequent problem is to point out that the group can translate that industrial scale right into a sustainable benefit within the age of bodily AI, in line with the official.
