Hyundai Motor America
Hyundai Motor Company logo
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| Public | |
| Traded as |
KRX: : NASDAQ: HYMTF |
| Industry | Automotive |
| Founded | February 20, 1986 |
| Headquarters | Fountain Valley, California, United States |
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Area served
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United States |
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Key people
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W. Gerald Flannery (Interim President and CEO) |
| Products | Automobiles, commercial vehicles, engines |
| Owner | Hyundai Motor Company |
| Parent | Hyundai Motor Group |
| Website | www |
Hyundai Motor America is a wholly owned subsidiary of Hyundai Motor Company. Hyundai has one manufacturing plant in Montgomery, Alabama called Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Alabama.
Hyundai's automotive history in America started in 1968 when Hyundai trained with Ford Motor Company. Then in 1985, Hyundai established its US headquarters in Garden Grove, California, while the Hyundai American Technical Center, Inc. was established in Chino, California. The First car to be exported to the United States was the Hyundai Excel.
Hyundai Motor America began selling cars in the USA on 20 February 1986, with a single model, the Hyundai Excel. The Excel was offered in a variety of trims and body styles. That year, Hyundai set a record of selling the most automobiles in its first year of business in the United States compared to any other car brand; total sales in 1986 were 168,882.
Initially well received, the Excel's faults soon became apparent; cost-cutting measures caused reliability to suffer. With an increasingly poor reputation for quality, Hyundai sales plummeted, and many dealerships either earned their profits on repairs or abandoned the product. At one point, Hyundai became the butt of many jokes (i.e. Hyundai stands for "Hope you understand nothing's driveable and inexpensive") and even made David Letterman's Top Ten Hilarious Mischief Night Pranks To Play In Space: No.8 – Paste a "Hyundai" logo on the main control panel.
In response, Hyundai began investing heavily in the quality, design, manufacturing, and long-term research of its vehicles. It added a 10-year or 100,000-mile (160,000 km) powertrain warranty (known as the Hyundai Advantage) to its vehicles sold in the United States. By 2004, sales had dramatically increased, and the reputation of Hyundai cars improved. In 2004, Hyundai tied with Honda for initial brand quality in a survey/study from J.D. Power and Associates, for having 102 problems per 1000 vehicles. This made Hyundai second in the industry, only behind Toyota, for initial vehicle quality. The company continued this tradition by placing third overall in J.D. Power's 2006 Initial Quality Survey, behind only Porsche and Lexus. Hyundai is ranked number 4 in World's Most Admired Companies under the motor vehicles section of CNN, after BMW (Bayerische Motoren Werke), Volkswagen and Daimler in 2011.
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Wikipedia