Hyundai plans battery subscription for EV taxis

South Korea’s Hyundai Motor Group plans to start a battery subscription pilot for five IONIQ 5 taxis, separating battery ownership from the car to cut upfront EV costs.

Hyundai Motor and Hyundai Capital will run the program for corporate taxi fleets with expired warranties, with drivers or operators owning the vehicle while Hyundai Capital keeps the battery.

The company said Kia’s EV6 for corporate taxi use cost 18.6 million won (US$13,000) without the battery last year and carried a monthly battery fee of about 1.4 million won (US$950).

The model still needs to show its total ownership cost can beat outright purchases amid pressure from cheaper Chinese EVs.

🔗 Source: The Korea Times

🧠 Food for thought

Implications, context, and why it matters.

Hyundai is trying a battery-as-a-service model first used in China

Hyundai’s pilot follows a model already used in China, the world’s largest EV market.
NIO started its “Battery as a Service” (BaaS) program in August 2020. Buyers could purchase a car without the battery and cut the price of any launch model by 70,000 renminbi (US$9,700) 1.
The plan aimed to ease worries about battery wear, future upgrades, and resale prices 1.
The test also lines up with Hyundai Way, a company strategy built around flexible electrification. That includes extended-range EVs, which use a battery plus a small engine or generator to add driving range 2.

The pilot puts Hyundai Capital in charge of the battery

Under the pilot, Hyundai Capital would own the battery. Taxi drivers or fleet operators would own the rest of the vehicle.
Hyundai Capital is Hyundai Motor Group’s in-house financing arm. It had 196 trillion won (US$133 billion) in global assets at the end of 2024 3.
NIO uses a similar setup. Weineng Wuhan Battery Asset Co., Ltd., a company created to own EV batteries and backed by NIO plus partners including Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited (CATL), buys battery packs. NIO handles the subscription and operating services 1.
If the test works, other automakers’ finance units may move past loans and start managing batteries or other reusable vehicle assets.