Hyundai Motor Malaysia (HMY) made its official debut in the country yesterday, unveiling three models that will form the core of its initial push over the coming year, these being the fifth-gen Santa Fe SUV, facelifted fourth-gen Tucson SUV and updated Staria MPV, all of which are internal combustion engine (ICE) or hybrid based.
Over the next five years, it will introduce seven models (including the above-mentioned trio), all slated for local assembly, with CKD production set to begin sometime in Q3 at the Inokom plant in Kulim. However, not one of the planned models will be a battery electric, with the company having stated previously that its CKD focus will only be on ICE vehicles as well as hybrids.
That was reiterated during the brand launch yesterday, with the company stating that EVs don’t figure in its immediate plans. “While the brand did have EVs in the market before, we are still studying the matter about its possible introduction.
“For now, we are going to just purely focus on ICE and HEV (hybrid) first. If the demand continues to increase, we will reconsider and see how we can move forward with the next step,” said HMY’s head of product, Sean Yeo.
Given that the brand has had a notable EV presence in the market previously, with models such as the Ioniq 5 and Ioniq 6 as well as the Kona Electric coming about when Hyundai-Sime Darby Motors (HSDM) was the brand’s custodian, it sounds like a step backward in the larger scheme of things. However. HMY MD Jahabarnisa Haja Mohideen says EVs remain in the brand’s plans, but the matter will need quite a bit of exploration into first.
“We do have extensive lineup and BEVs are one of the core products we have globally. But to bring that in is something that we are studying, especially in terms of what would be the potential of growing the market for Hyundai and Malaysia. We have not looked deeply into that yet since we’re just starting up,” she said.
She added that the brand will see how take-up of EVs progress and what further government incentives will be made available in the future. “We will consider all that in the future planning,’ she said.
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Cos great china ev is so much better than kimchi ev
Apapun cakap, janji bukan tipu scandal mcm toyota. At least kimchi dan mana jenama lain ada terbukti reliability kecuali toyota
Lu kelakar bro
Waiting toyota fanboys to dislike your comment as if toyota fanboys always done nothing wrong when toyota fanboys bashing any brands especially kimchi cars
Both china cars and kimchi cars can’t compete with high rv toyota cars
What an imaginary story that you said, but have you test drive? Anyways, sounds like you are panic that toyota will close down your business. And tell me what makes you think toyota is the best, when toyota can’t even beat any one of the brands and even more people also knows that toyota quality is downhill
Good, the country doesn’t have the infrastructure or network capacity to cope with the growth of EVs yet. Many Malaysians still live in condos as well which don’t provided personal EV chargers.
You either bring it and compete or you dont.Can continue to study while other player expanding rapidly and gaining larger pie in ev space(byd/geely/xpeng/mg/tesla) while the old and establish make continue to hold largest pie in ice market through years of hardship and establish customer service(honda/toyota/perodua) and those new player that is agressive and highly competitive new player(gwm/cherry) .Less not forget the semi premium niche player (vw/mazda) and popular premium carmaker (merc/bmw)..You can continue to study and second guessing what you want to be while all this company is thriving..Hope Hyundai motor group is serious this time..
when the CBU tax-incentive dries up end of this year, EV prices will go up significantly and for most buyers; your chances of owning an EV are either the used market or whatever few CKD models available.
Not many brands are willing to invest in CKD EV production because the market volume is too small for it to be scalable and financially feasible.
Whatever la, but better than toyota
Sorry only not smart people will buy kimchi cars, where can’t even compete with high IQ toyota
So your IQ is really low right?
Still can’t compete with China car
ok bye
Time to buy toyota
Said two toyota salesmen in this comment section