- Just months after General Motors and Hyundai Motor signed a memorandum of understanding to collaborate on vehicles, supply chains, and clean energy technology, the Korean auto giant has revealed potential plans to supply its own electric commercial vehicles directly to General Motors, in a badge engineering exercise.
- Hyundai’s Executive Vice President, Seung Jo Lee, told investors that the OEM is ‘considering re-badging’ its commercial EV offerings to supply GM, which would assist the manufacturer in making its first entry into the North American commercial vehicle market.
- The unconfirmed agreement could also work vice-versa, with electric commercial vehicles from GM being rebadged and sold as Hyundais.
Hyundai considers strategies to crack the North American commercial vehicle market
The potential rebadging efforts would form just one part of Hyundai and GM’s extensive future collaboration, after back in September 2024, the two giants signed a joint agreement to help cut costs and bring ‘a wider range of vehicles and technologies to customers faster’.
It remains to be seen which particular models Hyundai Motor would consider rebadging as GM products for a North American market, considering that GM already offers its BrightDrop range of electric commercial vehicles. Hyundai’s new and first commercial EV, the ST1, is a strong possibility. Hyundai-owned Kia’s new PV5 electric van could also be another route for rebadging. It’s unknown whether these rebadged models would be manufactured in the U.S., to avoid potential new tariffs from the Trump administration. However, with Hyundai already producing EVs such as the IONIQ 5 in the U.S., it already has much of the facilities in place to do so.
The original September agreement also made a mention of co-development and production on passenger electric vehicles, which will be another one to keep an eye on in the coming months – particularly with the U.S. threatening tariffs on cars made abroad.