General Motors, Hyundai Reportedly Looking to Build a Pickup Together
General Motors and Hyundai may wind up building badge engineered pickups for the Latin America market.
In recent years, a number of automakers have formed joint ventures or other types of partnerships with the intentions of pooling resources and saving on development costs, as well as building vehicles together. We’ve seen this from Ford and Volkswagen, who forged a partnership a few years ago that has led to the sharing of platforms and jointly-developed models, as well as Volkswagen and Rivian, which plan to share EV platforms and software in the future. Now, we may very well be seeing the same thing occur with General Motors and Hyundai, too.
Back in September, General Motors and Hyundai signed a memorandum of understanding that may or may not result in an official agreement to build vehicles jointly. However, it wasn’t entirely clear what kind of vehicles those two entities were planning to partner on, though a new report from Pulse indicates that it will include, surprisingly enough, pickup trucks. According to the report, Hyundai Chairman Euisun Chung and GM Chair and Chief Executive Officer Mary Barra met in the U.S. earlier this month to discuss these plans.
“During the latest meeting, the two leaders reviewed the progress made since the MOU was signed,” a Hyundai official stated. “We are exploring various areas for bilateral collaboration, ranging from vehicle development to future energy solutions.” Most notably, the talks revolved around “jointly develop pickup trucks aimed at the Latin American market,” using a badge engineering approach – much like VW and Ford – by selling vehicles built by one automaker but wearing the badge of the other.
Such a plan makes perfect sense given GM’s strong position in the truck market already, particularly in North America, where such vehicles remain incredibly popular – and profitable. Hyundai is reportedly looking to expand its reach and sales volume by competing in segments that it currently does not, so it makes perfect sense that it may want to explore trucks – though at least for now, it reportedly only plans to do so in a very specific part of the world. It’s possible that the two companies could develop a new pickup as part of this partnership that would wear both badges, but at the moment, those details remain unclear.
Regardless, it’s worth noting that General Motors already sells a handful of trucks in Latin America – including the Chevy Montana, D-Max, S10 Max, and Cheyenne, though the S10 Max is merely a rebadged Maxus T70, while the D-Max is also made by Isuzu.
Photos: Chevrolet
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