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Hyundai Motor Company

Known for Genesis, Ioniq

Hyundai Motor Company is a publicly listed auto manufacturer headquartered in Seoul, South Korea. In 2019 it had US$90.8 billion in revenue and sales of over 4.1 million vehicles. Hyundai vehicles are sold widely, with sales recorded in 65 countries in 2019. The majority of its sales are split relatively evenly across China, Europe, India, the US and South Korea.

Summary

Hyundai Motor Co. (Hyundai) has a performance score of 9.7 out of 20 against a well below 2-degree pathway. This is higher than Hyundai’s 2019 performance score of 6.6, when it was assessed against the less ambitious 2-degree pathway.

The separation of Kia from Hyundai in this assessment means Hyundai’s sales in key regions like China, the US and Europe are significantly lower and thus the sales-weighted vehicle in-use emissions in these regions appear lower too. This results in an improved performance on indicators assessing vehicle in-use emissions. Hyundai’s improved performance in this assessment however is not only due to the new assessment boundary. The company has been making progress on reducing its emissions, particularly in the China sales region where emissions intensity has decreased by 15 percent since 2017 (the end of the previous assessment data period).

Hyundai’s success in reducing its Chinese vehicle emissions is driven by its growth in low-carbon vehicle sales in the region. Between 2018 and 2019, sales of low-carbon vehicles from Hyundai’s joint venture with BAIC – Beijing Hyundai Motor – increased by 67 percent. However, as a portion of total global sales, the amount remains small, and Hyundai’s global low-carbon vehicle sales share in 2019 (1.58 percent) is low, as the company’s well below 2-degree pathway requires 5.7 percent.

Assessment Note: Hyundai received a full ACT assessment in 2019. The 2019 ACT assessment included Kia Motors under the Hyundai Kia Automotive Group. In 2020, Hyundai has been assessed independently from Kia across the 2014-2019 period, to reflect the separate corporate groups.

Performance module name	Performance module score	Rank (0-30)
Targets	1.1 /3	#8
Material Investment	0.0 /0.4	#12
Intangible Investment	1.2 /2.4	#10
Sold product performance	4.5 /7	#10
Management	1.0 /2.2	#13
Supplier	0.3 /1.2	#10
Client	0.6 /0.8	#3
Policy Engagement	0.6 /1.2	#6
Business Model	0.4 /1.8	#10

The company has committed to sell 670,000 battery electric vehicles per year by 2025, which would result in a 16 percent low-carbon vehicle share based on 2019 figures – far short of the company pathway requirement of 26.3 percent by 2025.

Even more concerningly, Hyundai lacks an emissions reduction target for its vehicle in-use emissions. The improvements observed in Hyundai’s in-use emissions performance in this assessment will be short-lived unless the company puts in place an ambitious, well below 2-degree-aligned, science-based commitments to increase progress.

See results for

2019
2021

More about the company

Headquarters: South Korea
Ownership structure: Publicly listed
Revenue (2019): US$90.8 billion
Number of vehicles sold (2019): 4,142,552
Website: https://www.hyundai.com/worldwide/en