The K-factor: Hyundai's secret design weapon

[Alx]

Hyundai has been the talk of the town in recent years as it continues to grab market share from the industry’s established players. Many have credited the Korean automaker’s successful shaking of its shoddy image through an aggressive quality campaign spearheaded by the largest warranty in the industry.

But Hyundai and Kia wouldn’t be selling so many cars if customers thought their designs weren’t desirable. In fact, Korean auto design has come a long, long way, and for much of that journey Kim Young Il, the executive vice president in charge of design and brand strategy for Hyundai and Kia, has been behind the wheel.

In an interview with BusinessWeek’s Asia Editor, Young coins the term K-factor when describing the distinct Korean design DNA that he hopes is expressed in his company’s designs that are being sold throughout the world.

Hyundai has an army of 500 designers stationed around the globe in Korea, the U.S. and Europe, which is a huge increase over the 150 employed just five years ago. Moving forward Young plans to further express a unique “design philosophy” for each of his brands, with Hyundais being inspired by the river stone (smooth, solid and refined surfaces) and Kias taking after a brick (solid and aggressive, with a feeling of strength).

Check out more of the interview here.

 

[Giannis]

Huyndai, IMO, is going extremely well the last years. In greece, Huyndai is first in national sales. As about the design, i think they make nice cars (just nice, though). they don't try for the beautiful car, or make something controversial yet nice (BMW)

 

[Alx]

They are doing extremely well everywhere... They came along way and are a major contender... Lots of there models sell out, and gor for good money too.

 

[notic]

its pretty much now or never for korean car manufacturer's. if they don't step up their game, the chinese will start exporting cars in a few years and compete with them head-on in the cheap car segment. the only hope for them to distinguish themselves is to improve quality and design...which i see they are doing nicely. kudos to hyundai. and also kia (the fastest growing automaker in the world).

 

[Snake Vargas]

I think Kia and Hyundai are two sides of the same company, if you will, like Peugeot and Citroen.

Yep, and with the demise of Daewoo, they've now started coming in from the quirkiness and the "only because I have to" image of before, to a respectable and reasonable choice of car.