Aug

Asia Pulse: Korea will “churn out” hybrids by 2011

Posted by admin Published in KIA, Hyundai, Hybrids

The Korea Institute for Industrial Economics and Trade (KIET), a state-run South Korean think tank, said that past week that South Korea will enter the hybrid car market in a big way in 2011 and soon after continue to play a big role in the global hybrid market. As you can guess from the urls below, there has been movement in that direction for a while, particularly by Hyundai/Kia, but Asia Pulse said that earlier reports were hinting at a 2010 start term. KIET cited the added cost of making hybrids as the reason for the later term.

KIET gave these numbers for Korea’s domestic hybrid production:

500,000 by 2015
1.8 million by 2020 (exporting 70 percent)

What vehicles these hybrid drivetrains will be put into is of

course unknown at that point. Adding increasingly than a million hybrids a year to the global marketplace will certainly help drivers use less gas (vs. driving standard vehicles), but Korean companies may want to rethink the delayed target term. Thirteen years is a expanded moment to wait for the small MPG gains most hybrids deliver.
Related:

[Source: EDTA / Asia Pulse]

Original post by Sebastian Blanco