A Week with the Hyundai Way

December 10, 2024

Sebastian Blanco

Hyundai’s recent Hyundai Way tech presentation week in Korea was, like the company’s future strategy, a cornucopia of technologies. The week included an EV-focused performance event co-sponsored with Toyota, a test drive of the cute-as-all-get-out city EV called Inster and presentations of Hyundai’s upcoming hydrogen strategy. The automaker also revealed its latest H2-powered passenger car, the Initium, a rugged-esque CUV that at least looks more capable than any hydrogen cars available today.

The broad-strokes approach makes sense. When the company announced its Hyundai Way strategy in August 2024, it identified several key components that would make up its “flexible response approach to market conditions and focus on electrification.” As part of spending 120.5 trillion KRW ($85 billion US) through 2033 on the Hyundai Way, the automaker plans to offer a “full lineup” of 21 EV models by 2030, introducing an “enhanced next-generation hybrid system,” doubling its hybrid vehicle offerings from 7 to 14, develop “affordable” nickel manganese cobalt oxides (NCM) batteries and work to commercialize its autonomous driving vehicle foundry business.

A next-generation TMED (transmission-mounted electrical device) hybrid system will be the pivotal piece in Hyundai’s hybrid expansion strategy, which will see all Genesis models (other than pure EVs) getting a hybrid option. The new powertrain will offer what the automaker said would be “significantly improv[ed] performance and fuel efficiency” compared to the current system. The TMED-II hybrid will appear in production vehicles starting from January 2025.

On the hydrogen front, Hyundai said in August that it would expand its fuel cell system lineup to include vehicles besides passenger cars. This could include trams, trains, air mobility, heavy equipment, and sea vessels (more on H2 below). In its original Hyundai Way announcement, the automaker also promised that it would introduce new EREV models, which it called “a new type of EV” that will have a range of more than 900 km (559 miles) on a single charge for the North American and Chinese markets.

As new as Hyundai might make the EREV sound, some obvious similarities exist to other range-extending hybrids, like the Chevrolet Volt. Hyundai’s new EREV will use an ICE to charge the battery, and the company has developed a new power electronics (PT/PE) system “to enable four-wheel drive with the application of two motors.” The first mass production EREV will come to North America and China by the end of 2026, but sales of the large SUV (in the U.S.) and C-segment vehicles (in China) won’t start “in earnest” until 2027.

Given the breadth of the Hyundai Way, it’s not surprising that we were only exposed to some aspects of it during a recent “Hyundai Way Week” in Seoul. Here’s what we learned.

Hyundai Initium concept

Despite producing some of the most awarded EVs in recent memory, Hyundai has never abandoned hydrogen vehicles. The company has been working on H2 vehicles since 1998 with its Mercury and Polaris I projects, which included the independent development of its core fuel cell stack technology.

The automaker’s wide-ranging approach to future powertrains was furthered with the unveiling of the Initium concept. Named for the Latin word for “first” or “beginning,” the Initium previewed Hyundai’s new “Art of Steel” design language, but for automotive engineers, the more interesting aspect is the third-generation fuel cell stack under the hood. Unfortunately, Hyundai did not provide precise details about this new stack, but it did say that it would be an improvement over the second-gen stack used in the 2018 Nexo, which has a power density of 3.2 kW/l. The 2013 Tucson FCEV was at 2.09 kW/l. The production Initium’s stack durability will be increased by 40% compared to the stack used in the Nexo.

Thanks to these improvements, “large hydrogen fuel tanks” and low-rolling-resistance tires, the Initium will have a range of over 650 km (404 miles). The maximum motor output will be 150 kW, and the FCEV will offer up to 100 kWh of vehicle-to-load (V2L) off-board power with full tanks, around a ten-day supply for a typical Korean home, Hyundai said. A navigation system with an FCEV-specific route planner will also be available when the production version arrives in the first half of 2025.

Hyundai Inster First Drive

While the Initium remained a bit of a black box, Hyundai’s latest all-electric vehicle was fully available for a day’s driving in and around Seoul. The Hyundai Inster is an all-electric version of the South Korean-model Casper, an ICE model. The Inster retains the Casper's cute looks and uses either a 42-kWh pack in the Standard Range model or a 49-kWh pack in the Long Range version. Both can charge from 10 to 80% full in 30 minutes when connected to a 120-kW fast charger and will provide either 300 km (186 miles) or 355 km (221 miles) of range, respectively, on the WLTP scale. The Inster has an 11 kW on-board charger and has external and internal V2L (vehicle-to-load) ports. The voltages differ between the Short Range (266 V) and the Long Range (310 V).

The Inster is 3,825 mm (150.6 in) long, 1,610 mm (64.4 in) wide and 1,575 mm (62 in) with a 2,580-mm (101.6-in) wheelbase. Like the ICE Casper, the Inster uses Hyundai’s subcompact K1 platform, which has been around since 2017. It’s clear from the driver’s seat that it doesn’t provide the same refinement as Hyundai’s EV-specific E-GMP platform. Still, with McPherson struts in front and coupled torsion beam axle-type struts in the rear, the Inster is more than capable of providing enjoyable driving in the city. The biggest downside of the Inster is that it lacks any serious acceleration capability, with the Standard model’s 97-kW motor offering a 0-100 kmh (62 mph) time of 11.7 seconds and the Long Range model’s 115-kW unit cutting that to a still-bad 10.6 seconds in the model. This is a massive miss for a new EV, but at least the steering was direct, and the front-wheel drive EV never felt off-balance. It was also wonderfully quiet, and the 5-level i-Pedal adjustable regenerative braking found in Hyundai’s more expensive EVs worked flawlessly.

In many ways, the Inster felt like a miniaturized Hyundai EV, with a four-dot steering wheel similar to the ones found in the Ioniq 5 and 6. The two 10.25-in (260 mm) infotainment and driver displays offered detailed navigation routes and provided information on the various safety and convenience features that include forward collision-avoidance assist, blind-spot collision avoidance assist, driver attention warning and smart cruise control with Stop & Go. These are all Korea-spec details, as the Inster will not be sold in North America. After a day spent behind the wheel, this makes sense. It’s a solid EV but would certainly struggle against larger and quicker EV options. One of the most significant numbers in the Hyundai Way plan is the company’s goal to sell 2 million EVs a year globally by 2030. To do that, smaller, more affordable options like the Inster need to exist, and while we’ll miss them in the U.S., they’ll be fun EVs to spot when traveling in Korea, Europe, the Middle East and other Asia-Pacific markets.

Hyundai’s hydrogen hopes

This fall, Hyundai Motor Group debuted a new slogan for its HTWO brand, signaling interest in businesses and technologies along the entire hydrogen value chain: “Be a First Mover in Hydrogen.” To develop parts of a hydrogen-powered future economy, HMG is working on fuel stacks, tanks and vehicles, and H2 production. During Hyundai Way week, the company said it is completing a feasibility study this year on producing 24,000 tons of hydrogen from 130,000 tons of plastic waste, for example.

Chang Hwan Kim, senior vice president of electrification energy solutions tech unit, said the Initium perfectly represents the automaker’s H2 priorities.

“The concept call we will reveal today is another fruit of Hyundai's unwavering commitment towards hydrogen energy and our determination to realize a hydrogen society,” he said through an interpreter during the reveal event. “In other words, it is our pledge to lead the democratization of fuel cell EVs.”

That democratization is visible in Hyundai’s ongoing hydrogen real-world applications, such as the NorCAL Zero Project and the Port Decarbonization Initiative, and in fuel cell trucks operating in various countries worldwide.

Hyundai’s H2 and battery-electric efforts sometimes overlap. For example, without revealing its supplier, Hyundai said in Korea that it had modified the power semiconductors from the two-stage inverters used in the Ioniq 5 N to give the EV a 5% range increase. These semiconductors are now being considered for future Hyundai FCEVs as well. In other words, there’s more to go along the Hyundai Way.

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