Hyundai to produce Creta EV in India for January launch

Hyundai Motor Co. said on Sunday it will launch an electric model of the compact sport utility vehicle Creta in India this January — 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 strengthen its SUV lineup for Indian drivers with the aim of boosting annual output there to 1 million units combined by 2030.

It plans to launch four other EV models in the South Asian market by 2030, despite slashing its global vehicle sales targets for that year by 6%.

The Creta debuted in India in July 2015. In consideration of India's large-family culture, the model features a wider rear seat space than other SUVs.

It boasts a higher bumper height — the vertical distance between the ground and the bottom of the bumper — to cope with the country's poor road conditions. It also contains an indoor air purifier.

In the first year after its launch, 40,888 units of Creta sold in India and it was named the country's 2016 car of the year.

Buoyed by its strong debut, Hyundai unveiled the three-row SUV Alcazar in 2021 and the light compact SUV Exter in 2024.

Exter was named India's 2024 car of the year after selling more than 47,000 units in the first six months after its launch.

Hyundai has since added two compact SUVs — Venue and Tucson — and its first all-electric crossover IONIQ 5, expanding its SUV lineup there to six including the Santro compact hatchback and the i10 hatchback.

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, of which SUVs account for more than half at 360,854 units, led by the Creta, Alcazar and Exter.

In the first nine months of this year, Hyundai has sold 459,411 units in India, 4,629 units more than the same period last year, according to the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers.

In the January-June period, it delivered a record-high number of cars in India. For all of 2024, Hyundai is on track to sell 605,000 units in India.

To accelerate its push into India, it acquired a plant in Pune from General Motors Co. in 2023. It is being renovated into a smart factory with an annual production capacity of over 200,000 units.

Once the Pune factory is up and running in the second half of 2025, Hyundai will have an annual capacity of 1 million units in India, including at the Chennai plant, where it is set to churn out Cretas.

The Korean carmaker also aims to build 485 EV charging stations across India by 2030. To power their first India-dedicated EVs, 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.

Last week, Hyundai Motor's Indian unit raised $3.3 billion in an initial public offering, pricing its shares at the upper end of its proposed range. It will debut on the Indian stock market on Oct. 22.

Write to Jin-Won Kim at jin1@hankyung.com
Yeonhee Kim edited this article.