Hyundai has big plans for greener tech

Nobody could ever accuse Hyundai of not thinking big. The Korean carmaker has grown into the fourth largest volume import brand in the U.S. market and is now on the verge of launching into the luxury and high-performance segments. So far, aside from some concepts and relatively efficient small cars, they haven't made any big waves in the green tech area, at least in the U.S. In an interview with Britain's AutoCar print edition, CEO Dr. Kim Dong-Jin made it clear the company is targeting the big dogs like Toyota in the coming decade. Hyundai has been running test fleets of hybrids in Korea, as well as fuel cell vehicles in both Korea and the U.S. Dr. Kim claims that Hyundai's products will be more advanced than the Prius. The question is will they be more advanced than today's Prius or the third-gen model that's coming next year? Hyundai is developing a lot of technology in-house, including fuel cells, hybrids and diesels that are already offered overseas and coming to the U.S. as soon as 2010. Hybrids are due to arrive at about the same time with limited numbers of fuel cell vehicles hitting the market a year after that.

[Source: AutoCar, via Winding Road]