General Motors and Hyundai said they aimed to work together on internal combustion, electric and hydrogen-powered vehicles.Rebecca Cook/Reuters
General Motors and Hyundai said Thursday that they would look for areas where they could collaborate on new vehicles, supply chains and technologies in a bid to cut costs and move faster.
The two automakers said they aimed to work together on internal combustion, electric and hydrogen-powered vehicles. But they did not provide details on where the joint work would be done, which executives would oversee the effort or how quickly they would come up with new models.
“GM and Hyundai have complementary strengths and talented teams,” Mary T. Barra, GM’s CEO, said in a statement. “Our goal is to unlock the scale and creativity of both companies to deliver even more competitive vehicles to customers faster and more efficiently.”
The companies have signed a nonbinding agreement and said they would begin exploring possible areas of cooperation immediately.
Like other automakers, GM and Hyundai have invested tens of billions of dollars to develop electric vehicles that have so far fallen short of the lofty sales goals some executives had set. Consumer enthusiasm for battery-powered models has cooled in the past year, largely on concerns about the high prices of electric models and the challenges of charging them.
Sales of such cars and trucks are growing at a modest pace, though generally at a faster pace than for conventional gasoline vehicles. Many manufacturers, including Tesla, have cut prices to spur demand and are scrambling to reduce costs.
“This partnership will enable Hyundai Motor and GM to evaluate opportunities to enhance competitiveness in key markets and vehicle segments, as well as drive cost efficiencies and provide stronger customer value,” Hyundai’s group executive chair, Chung Eui-sun, said in a statement.
GM has been losing money on the electric models it makes but has said it expects those vehicles to become profitable by the end of the year. Ford Motor lost $2.5 billion on its electric vehicle business in the first half of this year and has set up a development team in California to design models that are less costly to produce.
Automotive partnerships have had a mixed record of success, however. Several years ago, Ford invested in electric vehicle startup Rivian but later decided to sell most of its shares. Ford also established a partnership with Volkswagen, but the companies have reduced their collaboration, and Volkswagen said this year that it would work with Rivian, mainly on software.
GM and Honda also formed a partnership to develop electric vehicles. Honda and its luxury brand, Acura, recently introduced two electric SUVs that are assembled at GM factories with GM’s battery technology. But the two companies have scrapped plans to work together on more models, and Honda has said it is solely developing its next slate of battery-powered models. Tesla has at different times worked with Toyota and Mercedes-Benz before shifting its strategy.