Покупка электромобиля — это «акт веры», говорит генеральный директор Hyundai Europe
«Если покупатель ставит вас на второе место, значит, вас он не выбирает», — заявил генеральный директор Hyundai Motor Europe Ксавье Мартине в интервью The Big Question.
ЧИТАТЬ ДАЛЕЕ : http://ru.euronews.com/2025/10/06/pokupka-elektromobilya-eto-akt-very-govorit-generalnyj-direktor-hyundai-europe
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00:00If you're the second preferred vehicle from the customer, you're the first one to not buy.
00:03We can see it as a trade-off and also see it as an opportunity.
00:11Welcome to The Big Question, the series from Euronews where we speak to some of the biggest names in business.
00:17I'm Hannah Brown and today I'm joined by Xavier Martinet, CEO and President of Hyundai Europe.
00:22Thank you very much for joining me today, Xavier.
00:24Can you just tell me a little bit about where you currently sit in the European market?
00:28If you look at personal cars, we're at 4% market share in Europe, we're ranked number 10 on the market.
00:34When you look back in time, 10, 15 years ago, we're at half this market share, so Hyundai has been growing over time.
00:40And there's a lot of challenges right now in the car industry, everywhere in the world, in Europe in particular.
00:45So we can see it as a threat, we can also see it as an opportunity to try to build the deal a little bit more in the coming years.
00:52And where do you see the real opportunities for growth for Hyundai in Europe?
00:56Europe is fundamental for us.
00:57You know, some markets were really top five and some markets were way behind that.
01:02But the two stuff, for example, is an icon on the CSUV segment.
01:06Hyundai is also doing a great job.
01:08There are some other segments, like these segments into which we are not performing as well.
01:11From the private buyer point of view, people buying their cars one by one, we're doing a pretty decent job.
01:15We're at 4.5% market share.
01:18But when we look at the B2B segment, which is like fleets, we're up so good.
01:22We're up 3.3%.
01:23So again, it's room for improvements.
01:26There's potential to be seized in many different areas in Europe.
01:29We need to develop products that are taking European customers' needs, lifestyles, demands.
01:34And when we do have global products, we need to calibrate them because you don't drive on the German autobahn like you drive in an interstate in the U.S.
01:42So I mean, we need to be able to somewhere really adjust and fine tune the vehicle characteristics so that vehicles satisfy the customers wherever they drive.
02:02What trends are you seeing among your customers?
02:03A quarter of our sales are coming from battery vehicles and plug-in hybrid.
02:08We have roughly 30% coming from hybrid and then the rest is coming from, let's say, internal combustion engines.
02:14It's in line with the market evolution.
02:16EV adoption is there, but not at the speed that was planned by everybody a few years back.
02:20So if you look into what experts were saying three years ago, for example, they were saying by 2025, there should be a 30% EV mix.
02:27In Europe, we're at 17.5% in terms of markets right now, total industry volume.
02:33And hybrids are really the ones taking the votes from the customers today.
02:36So we need to continue developing our strategy with these two legs.
02:39There's this EV leg and there's just a hybrid leg for the future.
02:42And you've announced production on a new car in the IONIQ family to start early next year.
02:48Can you just tell me a little bit about where that fits within your product range?
02:51This vehicle was really built for Europe.
02:54It was designed for European customers.
02:57It was developed with the engineering center for European customers.
03:00And that shows really how important Europe is for Hyundai.
03:03I mean, it's the whole strategy that we've been launching quite some time ago.
03:07We need to cover all the segments of the market with EVs.
03:10Because right now, what we see, for example, is that the EV mix is actually higher for fleet customers.
03:15But retail buyers right now have a lower mix of EV.
03:18They still want to buy the old ones also because either they don't find the car they want or the price is too high.
03:23And this is why for us targeting this lower part of the segment with strong EV propositions is what's fundamental.
03:30And it's one of the challenges that we have with EVs is that they're more expensive than, let's say, internal combustion engine vehicles.
03:34So, again, it's important that we have the right balance between, again, the specifications of the vehicle.
03:40You have the right range, you have the right charging speed, you have the right equipment in the vehicle until a price that's compatible with purchasing power of European customers in this segment.
03:51So, it's a delicate balance.
03:52And right now, there's a lot of great offers on the market.
03:55So, you need to generate some kind of emotion that makes people want to buy your car.
03:59And I usually say that if you're the second preferred vehicle from a customer, you're the first one they're not buying.
04:03And on that note about pricing, do you think that EVs currently, not just Hyundai, the whole market, do you think they are really affordable for the average European?
04:12Well, they're more expensive than ICE.
04:13Obviously, there's a price gap between the two because there's a cost coming with the technology.
04:17And so, yes, they're more expensive in terms of retail price that we're selling our cars at.
04:22At the same time, the total cost of ownership has to include also the fact that electricity costs you less than fuel that you're putting in a vehicle.
04:28You have to include also the fact that maintenance costs much less because you have less moving parts in an EV that you do have in a traditional vehicle.
04:36So, when people discover EVs, they realize how quiet the car is, how easy it is actually to use.
04:42They realize that the running costs are actually much lower than what they were used to before.
04:46When people buy an EV, they rarely go back.
04:49So, the vehicles that you're currently self-producing in Korea, if you shifted more of that production to Europe, you'd avoid the EU import tariffs.
04:57And do you think that would really help your ability to be competitive in the market?
05:01We have two plants serving Europe.
05:03We have the one in the Czech Republic, which has a capacity of 330,000 units per year.
05:08We have the one in Turkey with a capacity of like 230,000 units per year, roughly.
05:13So, the Czech plant was historically also EV ready.
05:16I mean, we've been producing the Kona EV in the Nozavice plant for several years.
05:21We're just investing right now to make the Turkish plant also EV ready.
05:24Last year, 79% of the vehicles were sold in the region were coming from these two plants.
05:30This year, we should be around 70% because we lost the Insta coming from Korea.
05:34And the success is really much increasing the share of, let's say, production coming from Korea.
05:39I mean, it sounds easy to switch production from one plant to another, but it's always more complex than that.
05:44Because it's a factory, but then you have the ecosystem with the suppliers all around.
05:47Never say never, but for the moment, there's no third plant plan for Europe on the table.
05:52The key thing is really finding the right products that are really the ones made for Europe with the right volumes.
05:57Because, again, you need to generate the economics that justify the investment.
06:01We've started building EVs in Europe with Kona, for example.
06:03Kona EVs are, let's say, a historical success story in Europe.
06:07Hopefully, the production version of Concept3 will also be the next success story of EVs in Europe.
06:13Finally, talk to me about hydrogen-powered cars.
06:15And when you look at the potential of hydrogen vehicles in Europe, you're like, ah, potential is not really present.
06:20It's true.
06:20But at the same time, we're not just developing one car.
06:23We're developing a car, bus, truck.
06:27And when you look at our plant in Savannah, Georgia, in the U.S., we're also producing our own hydrogen.
06:32So at the end of the day, you're not talking about one car, you're talking about an ecosystem.
06:35It's something that we definitely want to continue investing on.
06:37EVs are one great way to electrify the car park.
06:41But we also have some questions about access to raw materials and rare earth materials.
06:45And will these tensions on the access to raw materials really change?
06:48Not so sure.
06:49So, again, it's quite interesting to develop some kind of alternative that one day might become quite interesting
06:55or might become quite valuable, actually, as a complement.
06:59So we're not opposing the two.
07:01We're just saying it's good to have different solutions to decarbonize the car industries.
07:06And what right now do you think are the barriers?
07:09The infrastructure.
07:10We don't have that many charging stations.
07:12And again, the charging stations for hydrogen costs a lot more than the electricity.
07:15Again, it's why we don't see these technologies as opposing technologies, but they might complement each other.
07:21So that's why we've announced that by 2027, when we talk to European customers,
07:26every single Hyundai model in Europe will have at least like a hybrid powertrain
07:32or a plug-in hybrid powertrain or a full EV powertrain or hydrogen powertrain.
07:39And I think it's really like one of the interesting propositions that Hyundai is making to customers in Europe.
07:45Brilliant.
07:45Well, thank you so much for your time today.
07:47And thank you for joining me on The Big Question.
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