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| Hyundai Motor employees celebrate the start of production of the Santa Cruz pickup truck at the company's U.S plant in Alabama, June 22. / Courtesy of Hyundai Motor Group |
By Kim Yoo-chul
After reports that the "American Jobs Plan" will exclude measures for granting direct subsidies for electric vehicles (EVs), Korea's Hyundai Motor Group (HMG) said Wednesday it will closely consider investing more in technology in the United States.
"HMG's investment plan in the United States that will run through 2025 hasn't been changed. Our investment plan in the United States will be in sync with necessities and needs and this isn't something to be changed just because of some outstanding factors," a company official said.
Biden's jobs plan originally called for a massive $100 billion in direct subsidies for EVs. However, according to a White House fact sheet, the compromise plan excludes such funds. The original plan included ways to slash the price of EVs at the point of sale for vehicle buyers to make buying such vehicles an easier consumer decision.
But it still isn't clear if Biden has a stronger interest in pursuing direct EV subsidies. The recently-announced $973 billion bipartisan infrastructure plan, is calling for $7.5 billion to build a nationwide EV charging infrastructure network.
"HMG is focusing more on the development of some future tech that it identified as 'something next.' In order to expand the portion of combined sales from robotics and UAMs to 50 percent by 2030, HMG will invest more in relevant tech rather than massively expanding its vehicle manufacturing lines in the United States," Lim Eun-young, an analyst at Samsung Securities, said.
Specifically, Hyundai Motor has a stronger appetite to create an urban air mobility ecosystem. It recently acquired a controlling interest in Boston Dynamics.
At the time of President Moon Jae-in's recent visit to the United States, HMG said it planned to invest up to $7.4 billion by 2025 to produce more EVs, upgrade its production facilities and explore more possibilities with intelligent mobility. For HMG, which includes Hyundai Motor and affliate Kia, the investment will help boost the future product lines of both automakers.
HMG, however, added it will closely monitor the "market and government policies" as it aims to prepare its U.S. output facilities for EV production.
"An exclusion of direct EV subsidies may weaken Hyundai's price competitiveness in the United States. But overall, Hyundai Motor could realign its existing vehicle facilities in the U.S. states of Alabama and Georgia as EV-assigned production lines not rapidly but gradually as the EV subsidy issue isn't such an urgent issue for Hyundai," said an industry executive.
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