Despite ongoing war in Ukraine, is Hyundai positioning for return to Russia?
Despite pulling out of the Russian market in a response to that nation’s invasion of Ukraine, new trademark filings and a buyback option on its shuttered factory are raising eyebrows. Is Hyundai headed for a Russian return?
Hyundai joined most Western automakers in pulling out of the Russian market, and officially “left” the market in December of 2023, issuing one of the shortest, emotionally neutral-est press releases in recent memory:
SEOUL, December 19, 2023 – Hyundai Motor Company (Hyundai) today held a Board of Directors meeting, approving a plan to sell its entire stake in Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Rus (HMMR LLC) to Art-Finance LLC. The operation of St. Petersburg-based HMMR has been suspended since March 2022. Hyundai is currently making final arrangements with Art-Finance for details of the deal.
To support Hyundai vehicle owners in Russia, Hyundai will continue to provide after-sales services and other customer care businesses.
But Hyundai didn’t simply abandon its Russian assets or sell them off. The Korea Herald reports that the company “sold” its manufacturing facility in St. Petersburg for just 140,000 won (the equivalent of 100USD), with a buyback option allowing the company to buy the plant back within two years of the initial sale.
For those of you doing the math, that gives Hyundai until December 2025 to decide whether it wants to buy back its massive, multimillion dollar, 200,000-unit annual capacity St. Petersburg factory for less than the cost of taking a family of four out to a prime-time showing of whatever Disney’s latest cynical live-action cash-grab is.
“But wait,” says the disembodied head of Billy Mays’ ghost, “there’s more!” That same report cites a number of Russian outlets that claim Hyundai and Kia have received more than 20 fresh trademarks in the vehicles, parts, and accessory categories from Rospatent, the Russian Federal Service for Intellectual Property.
My guess: they’re gonna want that factory back.
Why now
While it might be nice to imagine a resolution and permanent ceasefire in Ukraine, the reality is that it’s Trump’s destabilizing tariffs, combined with a population that’s reluctant to give Chinese automakers a fresh foothold on their uphill climb, have come together to make a fresh look at the Russian market – especially as the two-year buyback deadline looms.
“With the Trump risks regarding US exports, (Hyundai) needs to figure out ways to diversify their business regions,” Kim Pil-su, an automotive engineering professor at Daelim University, told The Korea Times. “(The company) already has experience in the Russian market and Russian customers have preference for Hyundai and Kia cars. It might cost them to buy back (the Russian plant) but they are going to proceed with the buyback option to revive their Russian business.”
It’s believed that Hyundai’s new, affordable new $25,000 Inster EV will lead the Korean charge back into Russia – part of a bid to push back against the Chinese influx of affordable, high-tech EVs, while the St. Petersburg factory spools up for production of more gas-powered offerings as EVs struggle to gain traction.
At its peak, Hyundai sold 354,000 vehicles across the country, accounting for a massive 23.3% total share of the new car market. Without other Western competition, a reborn HMMR would be looking at blue skies and green fields. If cold ones.
Electrek’s Take
Nobody ever said, “this is business,” before doing something nice. Planning for a return to the world’s 11th largest economy while the rest of the industry hits the brakes and waits for more stable footing is good business.
To put it another way: scared money don’t make no money.
SOURCES: TASS, The Korea Times; image of Trump and Putin from Wikimedia. According to Google Translate, that text in the featured image reads, “GOING BACK.”
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Ford’s electric pickup truck is back at the top. The F-150 Lightning is once again the best-selling electric pickup in the US after overtaking the Tesla Cybertruck in the first quarter.
Ford’s F-150 Lightning is the best-selling electric pickup
After launching in 2023, Tesla’s Cybertruck quickly outpaced the Lightning to become America’s top-selling EV pickup last year.
Since Tesla doesn’t break down regional sales, registration data gives us our best estimate. The latest registration data from S&P Global Mobility (via Automotive News) shows that the F-150 Lightning retook the title in March and the first quarter of 2025.
Ford’s electric pickup notched 2,598 registrations in March, topping the Tesla Cybertruck with 2,170. In the first quarter, the F-150 Lightning remained ahead with 7,913 registrations, compared to the Cybertruck’s 7,126.
Although the Cybertruck was the fifth top-selling EV in the US last year, it didn’t even crack the top ten in March. It placed ninth through the first three months of 2025, behind the Volkswagen ID.4.
While Tesla and Ford remained the leaders in the electric pickup market, several new models are gaining momentum. According to the most recent numbers from Cox Automotive, GM sold 2,383 Chevy Silverado EVs and 1,249 GMC Sierra EV models in Q1. Meanwhile, Rivian sold 1,727 R1Ts during the quarter.
Earlier today, Electrek reported that new models, including the Honda Prologue and Chevy Blazer EV, helped drive EV registrations up 20% in the US in March.
Although the Lightning reclaimed the crown from Tesla, Ford’s electric pickup isn’t exactly flying off the lot. Ford reported Lightning sales fell 16% to just 1,740 units in April. Through April 2025, Ford has sold 8,927 electric trucks, down 9% from the 9,833 it handed over last year.
Electrek’s Take
To be fair, Tesla is still ahead by a wide margin in the US. The S&P numbers show Tesla had over 51,000 registrations in March, up 1% after two months of lower YOY growth.
GM’s Chevy surpassed Ford to become the second-best-selling EV brand with nearly 8,500 registrations, an increase of 274% from last year. Ford dropped to third with 7,361 registrations.
Although it’s just one quarter, it’s starting to show how Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s political antics are likely impacting sales. After the Cybertruck’s initial hype, it appears many buyers are opting for traditional pickups, like the F-150 Lighting.
Meanwhile, Ram is delaying its first electric pickup, the 1500 REV, again. Ram is pushing production back until summer 2027, saying it’s “extending the quality validation period.” The plug-in hybrid (PHEV) Ramcharger will also be delayed until the first quarter of 2026.
After pulling the Ramcharger ahead of the fully electric version last year, Stellantis blamed weak demand for EV pickups in the US.
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Environment
Podcast: EV tax credit on chopping block, Tesla’s China problem, Slate gets interest, and more
In the Electrek Podcast, we discuss the most popular news in the world of sustainable transport and energy. In this week’s episode, we discuss how the GOP plans to kill the EV tax credit, Tesla’s China problem, Slate getting some interest, and more.
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After the show ends at around 5 p.m. ET, the video will be archived on YouTube and the audio on all your favorite podcast apps:
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Tesla’s Austin robotaxi fleet will be powered by ‘plenty of teleoperation’ as it “can’t screw up”, according to a new report from Morgan Stanley after meeting with Tesla.
You won’t hear anything negative about Tesla from Morgan Stanley very often.
Morgan Stanley’s Tesla analyst, Adam Jonas, has often been described as a ‘Tesla cheerleader’ on Wall Street for his extremely rosy view of the company. He generally believes whatever Elon Musk claims and adds a slight delay to the CEO’s timeline.
Recently, Jonas met with Tesla with some clients and released a new note that he hinted to be based on what he learned from Tesla during the meeting.
He claims that the planned “robotaxi” rollout in Austin next month is going to use “plenty of tele ops to ensure safety levels”:
Austin’s a ‘go’ but fleet size will be low. Think 10 to 20 cars. Public roads. Invite only. Plenty of tele ops to ensure safety levels (“we can’t screw up”). Still waiting for a date.
‘Tele ops’ stands for teleoperations, meaning that Tesla employees will be able to remotely access Tesla’s vehicles and operate them in some capacity.
Last year, Electrek reported that Tesla started hiring for this teleoperation team before the Robotaxi launch in Austin.
We have been extensively reporting on how much Tesla’s planned robotaxi fleet in Austin diverges from its previously disclosed plans of deploying “unsupervised Full Self-Driving” in its consumer vehicles.
Tesla plans to deploy “10-20” Model Y vehicles to offer ride-hailling services in a geo-fenced area of Austin, Texas using a version of its ‘Supervised Full Self-Driving’ (FSD), but instead of being supervised by a driver inside the vehicle, like the current product in consumer vehicles, Tesla is going to used employees to remotely supervise the vehicles.
The service is supposed to launch in June.
Electrek’s Take
I seriously don’t get why anyone could get excited about this. It is going to be a bit better than the current FSD, which has stalled for months as Tesla focuses on optimizing the system for Austin, but it will still basically be supervised – just remotely.
There’s a chance that it won’t even be remote as some believe Tesla will even fumble that timeline and use safety drivers, but I don’t know. I’m about 50/50 on that prediction right now.
Remote supervisors make more sense as Tesla can claim a little victory even though it would be less impressive than what Waymo has been doing for years.
The real goal that Tesla sold to consumers is that their privately owned vehicles would become self-driving without supervision and we are still so far from that. It’s clear that this project is mainly to distract them from that fact.
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