Hyundai Motor Group intends to carve out a share of the electrical car market beginning subsequent 12 months with the primary two battery-powered crossovers from its new e-GMP platform.

The versatile platform is vital to the South Korean automaker’s goal of promoting 1 million EVs globally by 2025.

Final week in Seoul, the corporate unveiled the e-GMP structure, quick for electrical world modular platform, with executives promising sporty efficiency.

The bottom structure might be rear-wheel drive, with a low heart of gravity, lengthy wheelbase and quick overhangs. The setup is geared towards bigger automobiles from the C-segment and above, all the way in which to a seven-seat crossover within the realm of the Hyundai Palisade, the automaker stated. And it may accommodate a variety of auto physique varieties, from sedans and crossovers to efficiency vehicles.

All three of the auto group’s manufacturers — Hyundai, Kia and Genesis — will use e-GMP, and the marques will differentiate their choices primarily by design and onboard facilities.

The automaker is specializing in 23 all-electric fashions to fulfill that 1 million-vehicle goal, together with e-GMP fashions and electrical derivatives of automobiles which can be additionally provided with inside combustion engines.

The widespread platform might be Hyundai’s technique in a scorching industrywide EV race that features such world behemoths as Normal Motors and Volkswagen. VW stated final month it’s going to spend about $88.6 billion on future applied sciences, partly to supply about 26 million EVs in Europe, China and the U.S. by 2030. GM, in the meantime, desires to make 40 p.c of its U.S. lineup electrical by 2025.

Of the Hyundai group’s 23 deliberate electrics, 12 might be derivatives and 11 devoted. Hyundai will not say how most of the 11 will experience on e-GMP, however the first e-GMP nameplate would be the Ioniq 5, a midsize crossover debuting in 2021. That might be adopted later subsequent 12 months by an e-GMP crossover from Kia.

Driving dynamics will assist set the South Korean EVs other than different pluggable vehicles being rolled out by rivals world wide, stated Albert Biermann, Hyundai Motor Group’s world R&D head.

For starters, the rear-wheel structure with the principle motor on the rear axle will ship “a number of enjoyable,” he stated. However the automobiles may also be reconfigured as all-wheel-drive by including a entrance motor.

E-GMP, which options an all-new battery and motor, can cowl 0 to 62 mph in lower than 3.5 seconds, with a high pace of 161 mph, Hyundai stated. The brand new automobiles can drive as much as 310 miles on a full battery, which may recharge to 80 p.c in 18 minutes. However Hyundai’s figures have been drawn from the European testing cycle — the Worldwide Harmonized Mild Automobiles Take a look at Process, thought of extra beneficiant than what is going to ultimately be U.S. EPA-certified numbers.

Subsequent 12 months’s Kia mannequin might be a “very highly effective model,” Biermann stated. And a high-performance EV idea is anticipated to be proven additionally in 2021. “We’re engaged on this for fairly a while and making ready for a really emotional battery-electric driving expertise,” Biermann stated.

Relying on the configuration, the e-GMP system can churn out as much as 600 hp, he stated.

Driving dynamics might be enhanced by a five-link rear suspension and what Hyundai calls the world’s first mass-produced built-in drive axle. That expertise combines wheel bearings into the driveshaft for higher consolation and stability.

Vitality density within the new battery has been elevated 10 p.c to ship higher punch from lighter packaging. A brand new cooling block construction additionally makes the battery pack extra compact.

The brand new motor, which receives such tweaks as oil cooling and a brand new “hairpin” winding technique for its coil, delivers a 70 p.c enhance in its most rotation pace to over 20,000 rpm.

The motor is managed by an inverter utilizing silicon carbide semiconductors that expend much less power. That in itself provides about 5 p.c to the car’s general driving vary, Hyundai stated. However the key phrase of the brand new structure is flexibility. Except for crossovers and efficiency vehicles, e-GMP will underpin fleet automobiles, together with a future robotaxi, Biermann stated.

“E-GMP is a superb place to begin to make very stunning designs,” he stated.

“It gives a large scope of alternatives for all types of person and driving experiences for all of our three manufacturers.”