Hyundai Motor Co. of South Korea has started working on a tiny electric vehicle for India even as it concentrates on delivering more luxury models to the nation this year, an executive told Reuters on Thursday. According to Tarun Garg, director of sales, marketing, and service at Hyundai India, various departments are working on topics including the charging environment, sales network, production, and the kind of assembly process the manufacturer should have.
In order to keep expenses down and keep the price of the cars low, Garg spoke about sourcing and making components locally, “We have to look at as much localization as possible,”
The small EV is a part of Hyundai’s ambition to invest 40 billion rupees ($512 million) and introduce six electric vehicles in India by 2028, pushing for cleaner driving in a nation with some of the most polluted cities in the world.
Less than 1% of all new cars sold in India are electric vehicles, but the government wants that percentage to reach 30% by 2030 in an effort to cut pollution and fuel imports.
Hyundai will release premium vehicles beginning with its Ioniq 5 electric crossover this year and will gradually go down the price scale until its little EV hits the roads, according to Garg.
The Ioniq 5 costs roughly $44,000 in the United States and has a range of about 480 kilometers.
“When it was about cars with internal combustion engines, we had this bottoms-up approach. In electric, we are trying the top-down approach, He continued by saying that affordable batteries and large charging infrastructure are essential for the success of mass-market EVs. Hyundai debuted the Kona EV in India in 2019 primarily to test the market, however, due to the expensive price and lack of public charging infrastructure, sales were muted. Lessons learned from the Kona, according to Garg, will inform the company’s upcoming EV strategy in India.