According to news on August 23, on Friday, local time, Hyundai and Kia announced a new alliance with three electric vehicle battery giants to help South Korea gain an advantage in the global market. This is also the first time that South Korea's top automakers and battery companies have joined forces to deal with overseas competition and promote electric vehicle technology innovation.
Kim Dong-myung, CEO of LG Energy Solution and chairman of the Korea Battery Industry Alliance, pointed out that the global electric vehicle market is a "national competition". He emphasized: "The government and companies must form a joint force, and LG Energy Solution will also go all out to ensure Korea's future competitiveness ”
Kim Dong-myung, CEO of LG Energy Solution, warned that competition in the global electric vehicle market has become a "contest at the national level." Kim Dong-myung also serves as chairman of the Korean Battery Industry Alliance, whose core goal is to consolidate South Korea's leading position in electric vehicle battery technology.
Under the signed MoU, the five companies will continue to collaborate on research and development, sharing news on the development of patents and new safety technologies, with the aim of establishing industry safety benchmarks.
According to foreign media reports, the cooperation between Hyundai and Kia and South Korean battery manufacturers began in August last year, when a number of electric vehicle fire accidents aroused public concerns about the safety of electric vehicle batteries, so Hyundai and Kia proposed to establish a battery safety task force and began to work together.
"The government and companies must form a 'united front,'" Kim Dong-myung emphasized, "LG New Energy will also go all out to ensure Korea's future competitiveness." ”
Following the proposal of the "Battery Safety Working Group" last year, Hyundai and Kia officially signed a business cooperation agreement and announced further strengthening cooperation in the future.
The cooperation was officially announced at Hyundai Motor Nanyang R&D Center, attended by a number of government officials and business executives. Hyundai, Kia and battery companies also disclosed a number of project plans, and each company will use its own expertise. The cooperation focuses on five areas: safety patents, digital battery passports, design quality, manufacturing quality and fire protection technology.
The alliance will focus on five areas:
1. Research and development of new safety patents: Jointly develop protective technologies with independent intellectual property rights for safety hazards such as battery thermal runaway and short circuit;
Hyundai Motor said that by developing safer battery technology, this cooperation "will further contribute to enhancing the competitiveness of South Korea's country."
It is worth noting that before that, Hyundai and Kia have launched a joint project in September this year to develop lower-cost lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries, aiming to target BYD blade batteries and other mainstream Chinese battery products, trying to break the monopoly of Chinese companies in the low-end battery market.
What is more noteworthy is that the "cheap version of LFP battery" secretly developed by Hyundai-Kia has entered the final stage, and this technical battle jointly launched by the chaebols points to the hegemony of BYD's blade battery technology.
According to people familiar with the matter, behind the formation of the new alliance is the "speed of life and death" of the South Korean government and enterprises: not only to break the strong encirclement and suppression of China's battery industry chain, but also to beware of the technical barriers of the European "New Battery Law".
It is interesting that the sudden addition of Samsung SDI may be to fill the system integration shortcomings of Korean battery companies.
According to SNE Research, China's leading edge in the global electric vehicle battery market is expanding. In the first half of 2025, CATL and BYD alone accounted for more than 55% of global electric vehicle battery sales, a further increase from 53% in the same period in 2024. In contrast, the combined global market share of the three South Korean battery companies (LG New Energy, SK On, and Samsung SDI) fell to 16.4%, down 5.4 percentage points from the same period last year.
In the face of successive setbacks in the Chinese market, Hyundai Motor Group is still thriving in the global market. Hyundai Motor Group's annual sales in 2024 were 7,231,248 units, a slight decrease of about 0.1% year-on-year in 2023, basically flat. Among them, Hyundai Motor (including Genesis) sold 4,141,791 units, down 1.8% year-on-year, but Kia Motors reached 3,089,457 units, up 0.1% year-on-year, breaking Kia's all-time annual sales record since 1962. Hyundai's global sales rank third in the world after Toyota and Volkswagen. Hyundai Motor Group's operating profit in the first quarter of this year was also as high as 6.98 trillion won, which is about 36.854 billion yuan, which is higher than the operating profit of Volkswagen, BMW and Mercedes-Benz, and also ranked first in the world with an operating profit margin of 10.4%.
While China still maintains a significant lead in the global EV race, South Korea has ambitious plans for the future. Can they close the gap with China? On the one hand, Hyundai and Kia are rapidly growing into best-selling electric vehicle brands in multiple global markets; On the other hand, China's BYD, Geely, Xpeng, NIO, Ideal and other companies are also continuing to expand, and the competition in the global new energy market will become more and more fierce.
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