Long before he ran Hyundai, José Muñoz was a nuclear engineer working on European space rockets. Then he met the woman who would become his wife. She was a car dealer, and suddenly the car business interested him. The lesson he carried from the space program was simple: launches can't slip. "The timing is the timing," he told The Wall Street Journal.
Two automakers want the same robot-filled future. They disagree on how to pay for it.
Hyundai vs. Tesla Robotics Strategy Compared
Both companies are committing heavily to robotics and autonomy, but their approaches look very different.
Hyundai | Tesla | |
|---|---|---|
Car business | 100+ new or refreshed vehicles planned globally by 2030 | Stopped full-size sedan and SUV production to make room for robots |
Autonomy | Building robotaxis for Waymo, plus its own tech through Motional | Cybercab, with no steering wheel, for its robotaxi fleet |
Robots | Capacity for 30,000 Boston Dynamics robots a year by 2028 | Humanoid robot assembly line |
The risk | Pressure on the car business could derail robot plans | Little in the pipeline if robots take longer than expected |
The contrast showed up on the same day. Tesla's Roadster, first shown almost a decade ago and originally expected in 2020, was delayed again. Meanwhile, Hyundai revealed its newest Tucson in New York. Hyundai has also been redesigning vehicles faster than the industry average, helping it gain US market share during what one analyst calls the industry's slowest stretch of new releases since at least the 1970s.
"The strategy is simple to say and hard to do: maximize the profit of the car business today through product efficiency and localization, then fund the future." José Muñoz, Hyundai Motor CEO
What Hyundai's Product Cadence Means for Its Dealers
Boston Dynamics is the sleeper in this story. Few automakers own a robotics company with that kind of track record, and Hyundai's plan to fund it from a healthy car business looks more durable than walking away from cars altogether.
Muñoz himself is a big part of the equation, too. Strong leaders are a little like a star wide receiver: incredible to have, as long as the rest of the team stays cohesive around them.
For Hyundai dealers, the near-term payoff is concrete. Fresh product brings shoppers back to the showroom, and a steady refresh cadence keeps customers coming back.
The fastest path to the future still runs through a showroom full of cars people want today.
