How Hyundai Succeeds In A Struggling, Competitive Auto Market

Award Winning? No, Award Dominating

Hyundai dominated last week’s 2023 Word Car Awards at The New York International Auto Show, winning three of the six categories, including World Electric Vehicle, World Car Design, and the overall World Car of the Year categories. If that’s not enough proof of dominance, the Hyundai and Genesis design chief, SangYup Lee, won World Car Person of the Year, and Hyundai’s sister division, Kia, won World Performance Car with the electric EV6 GT.

We saw the same dominance last year, when the Hyundai Ionic 5 won the same three World Car Categories (Electric Vehicle, Car Design, and overall World Car). And last year Luc Donckerwolke, Executive Vice President for Design and Chief Creative Officer, won World Car’s Person of the Year. These wins pile on top of Kia’s EV6 winning 2023 North American Utility of the Year from the NACTOY (North American Car, Truck and Utility Vehicle of the Year) panel of 50 jurors. And models like the Kia Telluride and Hyundai Palisade have won far too many awards from far too many organizations since they debuted in 2020 to list here.

It’s worth noting that Hyundai’s first NACTOY win came in 2012, with the Elantra, but since 2019 the Hyundai Motor Group (made up of Hyundai, Kia, and the premium Genesis brand) have won a NACTOY award five times. That ties with five NACTOY wins from Ford since 2019, and is more than twice as many wins from any other automotive group in that timeframe (FCA/Stellantis and Honda each have two, GM has one).

Winning the Numbers Game, Too

It’s not all about awards, right? At the end of the day, awards don’t pay the bills, car sales do. And in that area, Hyundai Motor Group’s success in the U.S. market mirrors its awards dominance. The company just reported 2023 Q1 sales, which came in at record levels with 184,449 units. That’s a 16 percent increase over Q1 2022, but March was even more impressive, with 75,404 units (an increase of 27 percent over March 2022). This is happening as many global automakers struggle to produce vehicles and grow sales and share in a post-pandemic world.

The Design, Engineering, and Value Trifecta

How is Hyundai killing it while other automakers scramble to succeed? There’s a famous saying in the auto industry: “There’s no problem great product can’t fix.” I love that line, because while it seems obvious it never fails to amaze me how many automotive executives clearly don’t know it.

And digging into the definition of great product is also pretty straightforward, through, again, many automakers overcomplicate it. The fact that Hyundai is winning car awards, design awards, and person of the year awards with its designers isn’t a coincidence. There’s another common saying in today’s auto industry: “There are no bad cars.” That may be an oversimplification, but the reality is that the ownership experience between today’s best cars to worst cars is much narrower than it was 50, 40, or even 15 years ago.

So if all of today’s cars are relatively well built and dependable, what’s the defining trait between good cars and great cars? I’ll give you three guesses but, at this point, you should only need one. Kia actually gets credit for recognizing the critical role of design first within the Hyundai Motor Group. That brand convinced Peter Schreyer, the German automotive designer who worked on the Audi TT and VW New Beetle, to join Kia in 2006 as its Chief Design Officer. This started the trend of incorporating innovative design on Kia (and eventually Hyundai and Genesis) products. I think we’ve established that was a good move.

But design hasn’t been Hyundai Motor Group’s only brilliant move. The automaker has been on the leading edge of the electrification trend for the past 5 years, first with hybrid models and then with pure EVs. By 2019 the Hyundai Kona EV was offering 258 miles in an attractive, functional package, and at a price undercutting most EVs with higher price tags. Those numbers reflect great engineering and value, two more fundamental traits in the “great product” recipe. More innovative, high-value EVs have followed, culminating in the award-dominating Ioniq 5, EV6, and Ioniq 6 introduced over the past 12 months.

Global Challenges Remain

Even as Hyundai Motor Group thrives in North American and Europe it continues to face challenges in the world’s largest automotive market, China. And its Russian operations have suffered tremendously as a result of the Ukraine-Russia war. The automaker will have to decide how much to invest in these areas versus pushing harder in established markets while also considering emerging markets with less political turmoil. But while war and political strife are largely beyond Hyundai Motor Group’s control, the automaker has clearly proven its ability to succeed in an increasing competitive global automotive marketplace.