Hyundai to produce Creta EV in India for January launch
Jin-Won Kim
12 HOURS AGO
Hyundai Motor''s Creta (Screenshot captured from Hyundai Motor website) Hyundai Motor Co. said on Sunday it will launch an electric model of the compact sports utility vehicle Creta in India in January next year, the first EV to be manufactured at its plant in the world's No. 3 automobile market.
With the roll-out of the electric Creta, Hyundai will bolster its SUV lineup tailored to Indian drivers with an aim of boosting their annual output to 1 million units combined by 2030.
Creta made its debut in India in July 2015 to target India. Reflecting India's large family culture, the model features a wider rear seat space than other SUVs.
It also boasts a higher bumper height, the vertical distance between the ground and the bottom of the bumpers in consideration of poor road conditions in the country. It comes with an indoor air purifier.
In its first year of launch, Creta sold 40,888 units in India and was named the car of the year in 2016 in the country.
Buoyed by its successful debut, Hyundai unveiled the three-row SUV Alcazar in 2021 and the light compact SUV Exter in 2024.
Exter was named the car of 2024 in India, after selling more than 47,000 units in the first six years of its launch.
Hyundai has since added two compact SUVs -- Venue and Tucson -- and its first all-electric crossover IONIQ 5, expanding its SUV lineup with six there, including the compact hatchback Santro and the hatchback i10.
Hyundai Motor's SUVs launched in India Hyundai's SUV-focused penetration into India compares with Maruti Suzuki's strategy centered on light cars.
The Japanese automaker is the No. 1 car brand in India in terms of sales volume, but its market share fell by nearly 10 percentage points to 40.8% this year from 51.4% in 2018.
In 2023, Hyundai sold 602,111 cars in India and SUVs account for more than half at 360,854 units, led by Creta, Alcazar and Exter.
In the first nine months to September this year, Hyundai has sold 459,411 units in India , 4,629 units more than it sold in the same period last year there, according to the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers.
To accelerate its push into India, it acquired a plant in Pune from General Motors Co. in 2023. It is under renovation to transform into a smart factory with an annual production capacity of more than 200,000 units.
Once the Pune factory is up and running in the second half of next year, Hyundai will have an annual capacity of 1 million units, including that of the Chennai plant, where it is set to churn out the Creta EV.
The South Korean carmaker is aiming to build 485 EV charging stations across India by 2030. Hyundai and its affiliate Kia Corp. will develop lithium-ion phosphate (LFP) batteries to be mass-produced by Indian battery maker Exide Energy Solutions Ltd. to power their first India-dedicated EVs.