Hyundai Sees Luxury Brand in Its Future

Hyundai Motor America Inc. may consider establishing a luxury brand, a top executive tells Ward’s.

“We’d probably be silly not to look at it,” Wayne Killen, director-product planning, says here during a test drive of the all-new Hyundai Veracruz cross/utility vehicle. “The case could be made that it makes sense for us.”

Hyundai already has “cut its teeth” in the fierce U.S. market by competing head-to-head with U.S., Japanese and European brands – and succeeding, Killen claims.

Hyundai’s share of the U.S. market grew last year by 0.1 percentage points to 2.8%, compared with 2005. However, sales this year were down 3.1% through February, tracking below the industry’s 2.5% decline.

Additionally, the U.S. market is expected to begin seeing Chinese-built small cars, which are bound to be inexpensive and potentially could cut into Hyundai’s value-oriented market segment, Killen says.


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david999 - 4/2/2007 10:58:54 AM

0 Boost

Hyundai will have the same problems VW has had in North America. It will always be considered in the same class as all sub $35,000 vehicles.

S4cabriofoxone - 4/2/2007 2:26:07 PM

+4 Boost

THEY'RE MAKING A NEW BRAND. Not a Hyundai luxury car.

zorbeeze - 4/2/2007 12:46:07 PM

+3 Boost

To build a completely new brand and sell it at a premium, well that could work. But to start selling high-end Hyundai's, that will flop.

zorbeeze - 4/3/2007 6:27:19 PM

+1 Boost

Well that's what i'm saying, it's amazing how marketing works. A fifty thousand dollar Hyundai will not sell but if they create a whole new brand, well who knows what could happen.

S4cabriofoxone - 4/2/2007 2:28:06 PM

+2 Boost

I called it!

I knew it would be foolish for them to just bring a Hyundai luxury car, and nto make a new badge for it. They must've considered the Phaeton disaster. Great car, wrong name.

This definitely could work. Look at ToyLex.

I hope they do something other than "Genesis," though. Seems too close to Infiniti, in theory.

no1listensanyway - 4/2/2007 3:12:59 PM

+3 Boost

It seems only natural for them to enter the luxury market, but it will be a long road.

Agent63 - 4/2/2007 4:19:40 PM

+2 Boost

It only seems right for Hyundai to look towards a future luxury division. If Lexus can come from nothing but rebadged Toyota's then Hyundai's luxury brand can do so as well. The company has to base from something and Hyundai would be it.

Like Lexus is still doing today in the world, Hyundai will have to gain a lot of credibility as a 'luxury' car maker.

Will_ - 4/2/2007 8:27:40 PM

+3 Boost

Hate me, deboost me, but this is not so much bad news for Lexus as it is yet again for the Germans' marketshare. Lexus will continue to flourish in North America and expand the world over. The introduction of a new luxury brand from a Korean company will only compound the situation that Lexus started in the first place.

XYZZ - 4/3/2007 3:29:58 AM

+1 Boost

keep up with the ethnic slurs, and YOUR name will start smelling like old kimchi here.