Indian EV market may grow 'strongly, steadily' till 2030: Hyundai India MD

HMIL's chief operating officer, Tarun Garg, stated that the company's first high-volume EV, the Creta EV, will be launched in the last quarter of the current financial year

The Indian electric vehicle (EV) market is expected to grow "strongly and steadily" through 2030, as many companies turn their focus to this segment, supported by strong government leadership, Unsoo Kim, managing director (MD) of Hyundai Motor India (HMIL), stated on Friday.

Kim's optimism comes at a time when electric car sales in India have been declining for several months now.

In September, 5,874 EVs were sold, marking an 8 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) drop, according to data from the Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations (Fada).

HMIL’s chief operating officer (COO) Tarun Garg stated that the company's first high-volume EV, the Creta EV, will be launched in the last quarter of the current financial year.

He noted that it will be a "very big game changer" with the potential to completely transform this segment. “We believe that such a high-volume EV from Hyundai's stable will really give the customer the confidence that EV is the way to go,” Garg added.

HMIL has announced India's largest-ever initial public offering (IPO) of Rs 27,780 crore. Bids for the IPO will open between October 15 and 17. The company's management was addressing a pre-IPO press meet in Delhi.

In its pre-IPO red herring prospectus (RHP), HMIL has mentioned that its royalty outgo to parent company Hyundai Motor Corporation (HMC) stands at 3.5 per cent of its sales revenue. 

HMIL's chief financial officer (CFO) Wangdo Hur assured that Hyundai will maintain a royalty outgo rate at 3.5 per cent for a "long period" unless there are changes to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) guidelines on transfer pricing. 

The OECD guidelines on transfer pricing require that transactions, including royalty payments, between related entities be priced at arm's length.

This will ensure that the royalty rate reflects what independent parties would agree upon under similar circumstances.

About the Indian EV market, Kim said that it is at an “early stage of electrification.”

“We believe that the Indian EV market is expected to grow strongly and steadily by 2030, mostly led by the government's strong leadership and many OEMs' focus on this segment. HMIL has access to global battery technologies. So, we are developing an EV ecosystem. We will be launching four new models. Our first high volume EV — which is Creta EV — is coming in the last quarter of the current financial year,” he said.

Garg added that Creta EV will be a game changer. "Creta is a very strong brand. In 2015, when Creta was launched, India used to be a market dominated by hatchbacks. At that time, the share of SUVs was about 13 per cent to the overall car sales in India (Today, it is about 60 per cent). Creta changed it all. Nine years down the line, you can see, we have surprised the market every year. We launched Creta facelift recently and it is already seeing double-digit growth, on the back of a similar growth seen in 2023,” he said.

Garg also said that the Indian EV market's slowdown should not be compared with the slowdown in the global EV market as EV penetration in the latter is at a much higher level.

“We are still at a very low level of electrification. There is only one way — up,” he added.