Hyundai and Kia will launch their first electric cars made in India next year

South Korea’s Hyundai Motor Group will launch its first electric vehicles made in India by 2025, as the parent company of the Hyundai and Kia brands seeks to strengthen its presence in the emerging space dominated by Tata Motors.

Production of Hyundai’s locally made electric cars will begin in late 2024 and will be launched by 2025, along with electric cars made in India by Kia, Hyundai Motor Group said in a statement on Thursday, adding that it will launch five models by 2030.

Both brands will use batteries made by Exide Energy Solutions to power their EVs, they said earlier this month.

India is the biggest market outside North America and Europe for Hyundai, whose unit is poised for a $3 billion IPO, the largest in the country.

Hyundai, the second largest car manufacturer in India, is known for its luxury cars. 2 in India, known for the best-selling sports utility vehicle “Creta”, currently sells two electric models in India, the Kona and the IONIQ 5, which are not produced locally. Kia’s only electric model, the EV6, is imported.

The company also reiterated Hyundai’s goal of reaching an annual production of one million vehicles by 2025, adding that it will increase Kia’s capacity by 300,000 to 432,000, the combined capacity of which will reach 1.5 million units.

Earlier this year, Hyundai completed the purchase of a former Chevrolet plant in the western state of Maharashtra, as part of its efforts to achieve million unit production.

The announcement was made during Hyundai Motor group executive chairman Euisun Chung’s visit to India, his second in less than a year. (Reporting by Nandan Mandayam and Hritam Mukherjee in Bengaluru; Editing by Sohini Goswami)