<article><p class="lead">South Korea's Hyundai Motor aims to increase its sales of electric vehicles (EVs) more than 11-fold by 2025 under a plan to become one of the world's dominant automakers in the fast-growing segment.</p><p>The group sees combined EV sales by its three brands — Hyundai, Kia and Genesis — climbing to 1mn units in 2025 from about 87,000 last year. Hyundai Motor plans to capture a 10pc share of the global EV market as it rolls out 23 new all-electric models over the next five years.</p><p>The group's Hyundai and Kia brands combined accounted for about 7.2pc of global EV and plug-in hybrid sales in this year's first five months, up from 5.4pc at the same point in 2019, according to South Korea's SNE Research. The parent company still ranks behind Tesla, the Renault-Nissan alliance and Volkswagen in EV market share, but the South Korean group this year surpassed China's BYD Auto.</p><p>Hyundai's EV expansion push will accelerate with the introduction next year of the first cars riding on the company's first electric-only platform. Rather than building only EV versions of conventional models, the company will start mass producing EVs on a dedicated, modular platform. The first model on the E-GMP platform will have a driving range of 450km between charges and will take only 20 minutes to recharge, Hyundai said.</p><p>The company previously said it plans by <a href="https://direct.argusmedia.com/newsandanalysis/article/2051347">2025 to invest 61 trillion won</a> ($50.8bn) in EVs and new transportation technologies. It also will need to strengthen its battery supply lines to help avoid the production constraints that have limited its EV sales growth for at least the past two years, which will lead to higher demand for nickel, cobalt and other battery metals.</p><p>LG Chem is the primary battery supplier for Hyundai's current EV models, but the automaker is looking to other potential partners to help achieve its growth targets. The company has held talks in recent weeks with all of South Korea's major battery makers — including LG, SK Innovation and the parent of Samsung SDI — on potential business collaborations. </p><p>South Korea's EV exports, which are dominated by Hyundai and Kia, <a href="https://direct.argusmedia.com/newsandanalysis/article/2122835">surged by 175pc</a> from a year earlier to more than 13,500 units in June, according to government data, taking January-June exports up by 82pc from a year earlier.</p><p class="bylines">By Tony Cox</p></article>
