Hyundai Motor Company is making strategic moves to establish a foothold in Japan’s burgeoning electric vehicle market, targeting both the consumer and commercial sectors with innovative electric models.
In 2022, 13 years after withdrawing from Japan, Hyundai re-entered the market with the IONIQ 5. Now, the company aims to expand into the commercial vehicle sector with electric buses.
Recently, Hyundai announced that it had signed an agreement on July. 18 to supply five ‘Elec City Town’ electric buses to Japan’s Iwasaki Group from October this year to March next year. Iwasaki Group is a company engaged in transportation and tourism, mainly in Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan.
The Elec City Town is a 9-meter-long mid-sized bus with a driving range of 220 km per full charge, according to specifications for vehicles sold in Japan.
It is equipped with essential safety technologies, such as detecting and warning of obstacles approaching from blind spots during passenger boarding and alighting.
The bus is expected to be priced between 40 to 50 million yen (approximately 354 million to 443 million KRW) per unit. The mid-sized buses of BYD, which entered the Japanese electric bus market earlier, start at 40 million yen. Hyundai plans to target the market with more premium specifications.
The reason why Iwasaki Group plans to deploy Hyundai’s electric buses is to protect the environment of Yakushima, an island in Kagoshima Prefecture designated as a UNESCO World Natural Heritage site.
However, Hyundai’s success in the highly competitive Japanese automobile market remains uncertain. For instance, despite being launched two years ago, the IONIQ 5 continues to face challenges.
Fortunately for Hyundai, the electric bus market in Japan is still in its infancy. So far, about 250 electric buses have been sold, mostly Chinese models from BYD, AsiaStar, and AlphaBus. However, Japanese company Isuzu sees potential growth in this market and plans to launch its electric bus early next year.
