Greenpeace slams Hyundai Motor’s green car strategy

The Seoul branch of Greenpeace has slammed South Korean carmaker Hyundai Motor, claiming that its green car strategy falls short of global movements on climate change.

In a statement published on Friday, the nongovernment organization argued that Hyundai’s plans to raise both production and sales capacity of electric vehicles to 850,000 a year by 2025 accounts for only 10.3 percent of its 2018 sales. Despite the global efforts to curb carbon emissions, the carmaker is still producing diesel vehicles, both large and small, it added.

The statement came a day after the carmaker unveiled a five-year plan to expand its electric car lineups to 16 models under Hyundai and Genesis marque, setting the sales target of zero emission cars by 560,000 units a year. Its sister company Kia Motor too plans to raise its target to 850,000 year. Under the plan, Hyundai Motor Group aims to become global No. 2 green carmaker, it added.

The plan sounds ineffective, Greenpeace said, urging Hyundai to turn its entire production lineup into zero emission cars no later than 2028.

The organization also questioned Hyundai’s responsibility as a global carmaker that it is passively responding to global efforts to cut down carbon emissions and urged it to take radical steps to keep up with the industrial shift to emission free automobiles. Volkswagen, the world’s largest carmaker, vowed to stop sales of cars with internal combustion engines by 2040, it said.

A diesel-version of sport utility vehicles to be launched by Hyundai’s luxury brand Genesis next month shows how the carmaker is “reversing” the global trend of going green, it said, adding that its strategy of keeping large diesel cars as the main products would undermine its global competitiveness.

By Cho Chung-un (christory@heraldcorp.com)