What just happened? Just earlier the finish of last twelvemonth, Hyundai reportedly airtight all internal combustion engine development and reassigned its engineers to electronic vehicles. Hyundai is the latest in a line of companies and even governments that have announced moves in support of EVs in the last year.

Manufacture sources told The Korea Economic Daily that Hyundai closed its combustion engine development and R&D centers. The South Korean company will no longer develop new gas-powered vehicles but volition reserve a few engineers to modify existing ones.

Hyundai will move powertrain engineers to an electrification design middle, while powertrain functioning engineers will now work on EV enhancements. It also established a new battery division to develop better ability cells, focusing on blueprint, operation, and raw materials for batteries.

Last August, automated driving systems company Motional appear it would add a Hyundai EV robotaxi to the Lyft app past 2023. Hyundai also unveiled its goal of selling 1.7 1000000 EVs worldwide past 2026.

This shift aligns with how other companies and governments desire to move further towards EVs by the middle and cease of this decade. In November, we reported that Xiaomi wishes to produce 300,000 EVs per twelvemonth starting in 2024, and Volvo plans to motility entirely to EVs by 2030. Meanwhile, New York wants to ban the sale of new gas-powered vehicles by 2025. The Uk likewise proposed phasing out gas-only cars by 2030.