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Tesla’s rise in South Korea pushes Hyundai to focus on EVs instead of hydrogen
In a 2014 book, Hyundai’s then R&D Chief Lee Hyun-soon, who also happens to be the one who developed South Korea’s first gasoline engines, argued that electric vehicles were “not realistic,” and part of this is due to their high battery costs. According to Lee, hydrogen based cars are a better zero emissions alternative, and the technology offered a “bright future.”
Hyundai, together with experienced carmakers such as Toyota and upstart companies like Nikola, bet big on the adoption and spread of hydrogen vehicles. The company launched the Tucson Fuel Cell in 2013 and the NEXO in 2018, both of which garnered a fair amount of optimism. However, this optimism did not translate to sales, and the hydrogen boom that was to come did not come at all.
Last year, 7,707 hydrogen fuel cell cars were sold globally. In comparison, there were 1.68 million electric vehicles that were sold in 2019, more than 86,000 of which came from Hyundai itself, as per figures from LMC Automotive. Tesla, the leader in EVs today, sold a whopping 367,500 vehicles last year, and that’s with a lineup comprised solely of premium cars.
Tesla’s expansion has been felt in South Korea. Since the launch of the Model 3, Tesla has spread its reach into the country. In June alone, Tesla had its best month in South Korea, beating Hyundai’s Kona EV and other premium rivals from BMW and Audi. Last month, South Korea’s rental service firm SK Rent-a-Car even announced that it would be adding the Tesla Model 3 to its fleet, simply because new Tesla products were the “most favored” electric cars among its customers.
In a statement to Reuters, an industry insider stated that Tesla’s rise has caught Hyundai by surprise. “Hyundai did not expect Tesla to dominate the EV market so quickly,” the source said. But with the demand for electric cars being established and highlighted in the country by Tesla’s rise, Hyundai is mobilizing to catch up. An internal union newsletter retrieved by the news outlet, for example, revealed that Hyundai intends to introduce two production lines dedicated to EVs in the near future. The first of these would be introduced as early as next year.
Euisun Chung, the leader of the Hyundai Motor Group conglomerate, has reportedly held a series of meetings with his counterparts at Samsung, LG, and SK Group, companies that manufacture batteries and electronic parts. In a statement to Reuters, Hyundai noted that it was collaborating with South Korean battery suppliers to “scale up” its EV production capabilities to compete in the electric car segment better.
Amidst these strategies, Hyundai has started what appears to be a definitive step away from hydrogen cars to electric vehicles. The company still promotes its hydrogen cars with popular K-pop band BTS, but it only intends to produce two hydrogen vehicles by 2025. In comparison, the company intends to have 23 battery powered cars by then. This was highlighted in a statement last month by Chung, who stated that the company wants to sell 1 million EVs per year, grabbing a global market share of 10%, by 2025.
Investor's Corner
Tesla gets its latest short from Michael Burry: ‘Happy it jumped back to this level’
Tesla short seller Michael Burry, the subject of the film “The Big Short,” where he was portrayed by Steve Carell, has revealed he has opened a new bet against the stock.
In a new update to his Substack newsletter in a post titled “Trading Post June 30, 2026,” Burry revealed a new set of bets against Tesla, Caterpillar, NVIDIA, Applied Materials Inc., and the iShares Semiconductor ETF.
In regard to Tesla, Burry wrote:
“And finally I shorted Tesla at 416.22. Happy it jumped back to this level.”
This means Burry likely opened his new short position after the company’s recent rally on Wall Street, which saw Tesla shares sink in mid-May, only to recover to well over the $400 mark. Currently, shares trade at around $427.
The company saw a big Tuesday as shares climbed considerably, over 10 percent. The size of the Tesla short was not provided, nor did Burry give any information on the position’s structure, the number of shares, dollar value, or whether options were used in the short.
The Tesla and SpaceX merger everyone is talking about is quietly building
Over the years, Burry has been one of the more vocal critics of Tesla, calling its share price “media inflated,” and saying it was “ridiculously overvalued” as recently as December.
The company has largely transitioned away from being known as an automotive company and instead is much more widely regarded as an AI play, mostly due to its Full Self-Driving efforts, Optimus robot development, and data collection related to both.
This has not pulled those skeptics away from being vocal about their distaste for how Tesla is valued, but there’s no denying that the company is a global force in many things, including sustainable energy, automotive, and AI.
Wedbush Securities is initiating stock coverage on SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX), marking the first comments on the company since it went public several weeks ago. Wedbush and its analyst handling coverage, Dan Ives, are widely bullish on fellow Musk company Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA).
Ives wrote his first note initiating coverage of SpaceX shares on Wednesday with a $190 price target and an ‘Outperform’ rating. The firm believes the company is well positioned off of its IPO because of its wide array of projects, including AI compute power and infrastructure, connectivity projects, and launches.
“We view SpaceX as one of the most differentiated assets within the tech market with a strong footprint across its three core markets, with Starlink driving success with connectivity,” Ives wrote, “Starship launches leading to a demand flywheel and increasing deal flow for its Colossus clusters.”
Elon Musk called it Epic: The full story of SpaceX’s Starship Flight 12
Wedbush leans heavily on Starlink, which they say is the “profitability driver given the strength of its recurring revenue base of ~12 million subscribers as of June 5th.” Ives believes Starlink is still in the “early innings” of penetrating the global telecommunications and broadband market, as it only holds less than a 1 percent share. However, this number is sure to increase over time.
It also highlights the importance of Starship, which it says is an “essential layer” of SpaceX’s overall success. SpaceX developing and displaying the ability to reuse rockets is a major cost and reliability advantage “as it reduces the necessary hardware launch costs while generating a feedback loop for future flights to improve their launch flight rate without accelerating capex spend.”
Finally, SpaceX’s recent AI/Compute projects are also very elementary, Ives writes. It is worth mentioning Wedbush said its $190 price target is derived from a valuation forecast that sees the company yielding roughly $2.48 trillion of implied enterprise value.
There are also some factors that Wedbush did not take into account with its initial coverage. The firm wrote in the note:
“We note that there is optional value coming from Starship’s accelerating scale towards sub-$200/kg unit economics, orbital data centers, and enterprise AI monetization as these factors could drive meaningful upside but these face major hurdles, so we do not take that into account with our valuation.”
SpaceX shares are down just over 2 percent today, trading at around $167 at the time of publication.
Tesla has expanded the footprint of a massive safety feature worldwide with a recent Software Update labeled as 2026.20.6. The expansion of the “Blind Spot Warning While Parked” feature represents the more widespread availability of the feature, which aims to prevent “dooring.”
Dooring is when a driver or passenger opens a car door into the path of an oncoming road user, usually a cyclist or motorcyclist. It is among the most common types of cycling accidents, the League of American Bicyclists says.
For this reason, Tesla created a feature that warns occupants not to open the door because an object is approaching. The feature will sound a chime, and it will also delay the opening of the door to prevent an incident.
The release notes state (via Not a Tesla App):
“If you attempt to open a door while an approaching object is detected in your blind spot (for example, a bicyclist approaching from behind) a chime sounds, and your door will not open upon initial button press. Wait a short time and press the button a second time to override the warning.”
Tesla initially rolled out this feature back in 2024 with the Model 3 “Highland.” However, it remained with the Model 3 exclusively for over a year; that was until Tesla added it to the Cybertruck this past Spring.
Now, it is making its way to the new Model Y, 2021 and newer Model S, and 2021 or newer Model X.
The prevention of dooring incidents could eliminate many injuries to cyclists, especially in an urban setting. Dooring accounts for 10-20 percent of bike-related crashes in major cities, and over 17,000 dooring-related incidents were treated in the U.S. over the course of a decade. These usually involve fractures, contusions, and head trauma.
Tesla gets its latest short from Michael Burry: ‘Happy it jumped back to this level’
SpaceX gets initial stock coverage from Tesla’s biggest bull
