HYUNDAI MOTORS

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INTRODUCTION

Hyundai Motor Company, a major company in the Hyundai Kia Automotive Group which is the world’s fifth largest automaker as of the end of 2009. (In 2008, Hyundai ranked the eighth largest auto maker, without including Kia.) and the world's fastest growing automaker.
Headquartered in Seoul, South Korea, Hyundai operates the world’s largest integrated automobile manufacturing facility in Ulsan, which is capable of producing 1.6 million units annually. The company employs about 75,000 persons around the world, Hyundai vehicles are sold in 193 countries through some 6,000 dealerships and showrooms worldwide.


Business
In 1998, after a shake-up in the Korean auto industry caused by overambitious expansion and the Asian financial crisis, Hyundai acquired rival Kia Motors. In 2000, the company established a strategic alliance with DaimlerChrysler and severed its partnership with the Hyundai Group. In 2001, the Daimler-Hyundai Truck Corporation was formed. In 2004, however, DaimlerChrysler divested its interest in the company by selling its 10.5% stake for $900 million.


Electric vehicles
Since 2004, Hyundai has supplied about 3,000 hybrid versions of its Getz and Accent small cars to government fleets as part of a testing program. The automaker cites a lack of local tax benefits for purchasing hybrids as a barrier to its hybrid development program. But Hyundai expects the tax situation to change in 2009.
The new hybrid electric Sonata made its debut at the Los Angeles International Auto Show in November 2008. Hyundai expects to release it in the U.S. market in 2010, featuring lithium-ion battery technology.[43]
Hyundai plan to begin producing hybrid electric vehicles in 2009. The company is going to use Hybrid Blue Drive, which includes lithium polymer batteries, as opposed to lithium-ion. The Avante was be the first vehicle to be produced. Other are the Santa Fe Hybrid, the Elantra, Sonata Hybrid (to the U.S. market in 2010) and the Hyundai i20, which will replace the Hyundai Getz.
Hyundai began producing the Elantra LPI Hybrid (or Avante in the local market) was launched in the South Korean domestic market in July 2009. The Elantra LPI (Liquefied Petroleum Injected) is the world's first hybrid electric vehicle to be powered by an internal combustion engine built to run on liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) as a fuel. The Elantra PLI is a mild hybridand the first hybrid to adopt advanced lithium polymer (Li–Poly) batteries.
The Hyundai Blue Will plug-in hybrid has made its U.S. debut at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit 2010.
In 2010 the company is going to launch the mass-market Hyundai i10 EV. Includes a LG 16 KWh lithium-ion battery, for 100 miles (160 km) all electric range, and a 49 KWh electric motor
At the 2010 Geneva Motor Show, Hyundai unveiled the i-flow , a concept car using a variant of the BLUE-WILL hybrid system