{"id":81158,"date":"2026-08-29T15:35:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-29T15:35:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/81158\/"},"modified":"2026-08-29T15:35:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-29T15:35:14","slug":"mind-my-words-hyundai-will-soon-become-a-major-threat-for-volkswagen-and-toyota-globally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/81158\/","title":{"rendered":"Mind My Words, Hyundai Will Soon Become a Major Threat For Volkswagen and Toyota, Globally"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\tCurrently, Toyota Motor Company ranks undefeated at the top of the automotive world with more than 10 million sales in 2025 on a global level, followed by Volkswagen AG with slightly less than 9 million. The Hyundai Motor Group comes firmly in third place with around 7.65 million units delivered last year, according to GodEson Tools<\/a>.\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Toyota<\/a> grew by six percent in 2025, Volkswagen faltered by around 2.3%, and the South Koreans (Hyundai, Kia, Genesis) soared by 2.5%. The main trends clearly show that Chinese brands are on the rise, especially BYD (fourth) and Geely (just outside the top 10), but they have a long way to go before posing a threat at the top despite their EV innovations and aggressive expansion.<\/p>\n

BYD<\/a> sold around 4.6 million vehicles \u2013 all new energy vehicles (NEVs) globally in 2025, overtaking Tesla as the main electric vehicle manufacturer and soaring above General Motors, which struggled with a small decline but held its fifth position. It\u2019s pretty clear that some legacy automakers are struggling, like VW, General Motors, Honda, or Nissan \u2013 as they face declining EV sales.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Toyota continues to thrive with hybrids after it has defended the technology for years, while EVs are now mainstream with around 30% of global sales, though not necessarily in places like the United States. What does it mean for 2026 and beyond?<\/p>\n

Well, if you ask us, the rankings show a crossroads this year: Chinese makers continue to surge internationally, even as they stall at home in China. Toyota will continue to dominate for the foreseeable future because of its hybrid strategy (pun intended), but if BYD continues to grow at this rate of almost 20%, it might challenge the top spot within a decade.<\/p>\n

Or not \u2013 because the competition isn\u2019t sitting idle and we can see that some automakers have adapted to the trends quite fast. Even Toyota has quietly started increasing the pace of EV launches while automakers like Hyundai<\/a> x Kia x Genesis have a sprawling EV lineup, a good mix of hybrids, PHEVs, and ICE, plus compelling new models and numerous refreshes.<\/p>\n

What does it mean for consumers? They will have more choices, additional options at both ends of the market (cheap and ultra-luxury), better and cheaper EV technology, and competitive pricing among ICE and hybrids, for sure. Brands must adapt or risk falling behind \u2013 but now that\u2019s valid for everyone, including the Chinese, which don\u2019t have the luxury of high sales at home anymore.<\/p>\n

However, this time around, let\u2019s take a minute to consider one of the brands I consider a favorite among the top ten automakers \u2013 not only because of its good strategy but also due to its audacity to go against the current when everyone tries to swim to safety. I\u2019m talking about Hyundai, the brand \u2013 not the group.<\/p>\n

Hyundai Motor Company recently had its 2026 CEO Investor Day and showcased its \u201cprofit-driven growth roadmap\u201d for the period until 2030, and boy did they come out with poise and confidence. Let\u2019s see the directives, first and foremost.<\/p>\n

So, they reaffirmed the 2030 target of 5.55 million global vehicle sales \u2013 just Hyundai, not together with Kia and Genesis. They also want to have 60% electrified vehicle sales by 2030, up from just 23% in 2025. To achieve the goals, they will launch 49 products at home in Korea and 100+ internationally, both new and refreshed. More than 18 will be new entries into fresh market segments.<\/p>\n

For the next eight months alone, they have seven new vehicles on the landing path, and the first extended range EV (EREV) models will arrive during the first half of next year with more than 600 miles of combined range. One of them will be the Hyundai Santa Fe EREV, most likely arriving with a mid-cycle refresh in the United States at Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Alabama to ramp up North American production.<\/p>\n

Global manufacturing capacity will expand by 1.27 million units by 2030, of which no less than half a million will be located in the US, and Hyundai N, the performance arm, seeks 100k sales by 2030. Genesis, Hyundai Motor Company\u2019s luxury division, kicks off its second decade of life with the first hybrid (GV80), the first EREV, and the all-new GV90 and GV90 Neolun, targeting 350k deliveries annually during the period.<\/p>\n

They will also scale robotics commercialization with Boston Dynamics, with robotaxi deliveries to Waymo starting in the fourth quarter of the year and US robot production kicking off in 2028 to join the next craze after AI chatbots. They also have an autonomous driving roadmap, in-house battery cell production targeted to double, and a 2030 operating profit margin target raised to more than nine percent.<\/p>\n

All these are seriously ambitious targets, and we have already seen the expansion take hold in new directions: Australia has received its first XRT Pro model<\/a> for the Palisade lineup, while the flagship crossover SUV also has a new High Roof option with a Rolls-Royce-like feature- the starry sky! And, of course, all the targets hinge on just one major launch that can make or break their strategy: the NX5 fifth generation Hyundai Tucson.<\/p>\n

Right now the details are scarce \u2013 Hyundai has only revealed the exterior and interior design of the all-new Tucson and Tucson XRT Pro<\/a> at home in South Korea. Next up they should come with additional information regarding specifics and the technical details, then launch it at home and prepare for the global expansion next year in Europe and North America, especially.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Currently, Toyota Motor Company ranks undefeated at the top of the automotive world with more than 10 million…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":81159,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20947],"tags":[16783,22523,3239,22521,22522,59114,51300,5356,4494],"class_list":["post-81158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-volkswagen","tag-ev","tag-genesis","tag-hybrids","tag-hyundai","tag-kia","tag-palisade","tag-tucson","tag-volkswagen","tag-weekend"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81158\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}