Hyundai’s New IMA Platform Will Be Used by 13 New EVs by 2030

Hyundai President & CEO Jaehoon Chang at Hyundai Motor's 2023 Investor Day

Hyundai Motor’s 2023 Investor Day saw the Korean automaker making several big announcements regarding the future of electromobility. By far the biggest one is the announcement of the ‘Hyundai Motor Way’ – a new EV roadmap to not only ramp up the volume of EV production, but also improve its manufacturing efficiency with flexible product engineering that can reduce the total production cost.

As a result, the Korean automaker projects their profit margins will increase, with them targeting margins of up to 10% on its upcoming EV models by 2030.

The old E-GMP platform will be replaced by the new IMA EV platform

To help accelerate the EV production, the firm is planning to replace its current E-GMP EV platform with a new one, cordially known as the Integrated Modular Architecture (IMA). This new EV platform will standardise modules and parts between the models, helping to significantly reduce the complexity of EV development, as well as cutting the production cost.

Hyundai Ioniq 6 (left) & Kia EV9 (right), two of the current models to use the E-GMP platform

By the end of this decade, the firm targets that the IMA platform will be underpinned by no more than 13 new EV models from all three main Hyundai Motor’s sub-brand, which are Hyundai, Kia, as well as Genesis. Aside from the new platform, these new models will also be sharing the same assembly facilities as the firm’s other non-EV models, which also helps to reduce the production costs.

Hyundai's new facility in Georgia, US will be opened in 2024

Speaking of facilities, Hyundai is also planning to build new dedicated EV production facilities, with the first one set to open in 2024 is in Georgia, US, with another one slated to be opened in South Korea by 2025.

To go along with the new IMA platform, the Korean firm has announced new details pertaining to the next-gen battery packs that will be used by 2025. These new batteries lineup will include the new lithium-iron phosphate (LFP) pack, while the current nickel-cobalt-manganese ones will be improved. Additionally, they are also developing new lithium-metal and solid-state batteries, which will enter production later this decade.

All in all, Hyundai has invested over $28 billion (RM) for this new ‘Hyundai Motor Way’ roadmap, which will take place in the next 10 years to fulfil. From that total sum, a huge chunk of $7.45 billion (RM) will be spent solely on the development of new batteries, while the rest will be allocated to the new modular EV platform and increasing the brand's global production capacity for EVs.

From said huge investment, Hyundai brand has raised its EV sales projection to over 2 million units annually by 2030 – up from its initial 1.87 million units target. As for its sister brand Kia, the marque is expected to sell over 1.6 million EVs by the end of the decade.