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Hyundai Motor Company, a division of the Hyundai Kia Automotive Group, is the world’s fifth largest automaker in terms of units sold per year and one of the Big Asian Four, with Toyota, Honda and Nissan. It is headquartered in Seoul, South Korea.

Chung Ju-Yung founded the Hyundai Engineering and Construction Company in 1947, which became Hyundai Motor Company in 1967.

The company’s first model, Cortina, was released in association with Ford Motor Company in 1968. In 1975, the Pony was the first Korean car.

Hyundai acquired rival Kia Motors in 1998 after a shake-up in the Korean auto industry caused by overambitious expansion and the Asian financial crisis.

In 2000, it established a strategic alliance with DaimlerChrysler and severed its partnership with the Hyundai Group. In 2001, the Daimler-Hyundai Truck Corporation was formed.

In 2004, however, DaimlerChrysler divested its interest in the company.

Hyundai's parent company, Hyundai Motor Group, invested heavily in the quality, design, manufacturing, and long-term research of its vehicles.

The company has invested in manufacturing plants in North America, China, Pakistan, India, and Turkey besides research and development centers in Europe, North America, and Japan.

Hyundai motor vehicles are sold in 193 countries through some 5,000 dealerships and showrooms.

Hyundai’s range has a vast range of eleven models with Tucson and Santa Fe being the bestsellers.

GREEN CREDENTIALS

It has also been keen in the development of green cars and plans to begin producing hybrid electric vehicles in 2009.

The Avante will be the first vehicle to be produced. Since 2004, Hyundai has supplied about 3,000 hybrid versions of its Getz and Accent small cars to government fleets as part of a testing program.

The new hybrid electric Sonata will make its debut at the Los Angeles International Auto Show in November 2008.

Hyundai expects to release it in the US market in 2010, featuring lithium-ion battery technology.

At the Geneva motor show in 2007, Hyundai demonstrated the QarmaQ concept developed to demonstrate new materials which it believes will be prevalent in all new cars within the next few years.

The body uses new plastic materials which save 60kg in weight compared to conventional materials.

On the fuel side of things, the company has come up with fuel-cell Tucsons, and has also demonstrated an electric Santa Fe which it claims can recharge within only 30 minutes.

Both Kia and Hyundai are aiming to offer a new diesel engine by 2010 which is claimed to cut emissions of oxides of nitrogen oxide by 90 per cent, which would make the diesel as clean as a petrol engine.