Hyundai and GM may co-create a pickup truck: report

Don’t you love it when a plan comes together? I did it only a couple of months ago General Motors Company and Hyundai Motor Company signs Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to collaborate on future products, supply chain efficiencies and clean energy technologies. And already, apparently, we are getting it a truck! Well, there is someone.

Rumors from South Korea say that the heads of the auto conglomerates continued to communicate with each other in early November about the MOU. The result of these negotiations was the joint development of a new pickup truck.

According to South Korean outlet PulseGM Chairman and CEO Mary Barra and Hyundai Motor Group Chairman Yusun Chung met in the US, where their discussion covered “various areas of bilateral cooperation, ranging from vehicle development to future energy solutions,” according to a Hyundai source.

For trucks, automakers are believed to be considering an “engineering badge” approach, which could go one of two ways. The car is made by Hyundai but has a GM badge, or vice versa. But as for the design Come on is part of the Hyundai Motor Group, maybe the Collab pickup won’t be as polarizing as Tasman. Either way, the joint project will reduce development costs, while both will also benefit from an expanded sales network.

But why a pickup and not something else? Well, GM knows a thing or two about building them, and Hyundai has nothing in the wheelhouse to help sales. You might be thinking, “So what Holy Cross?” What’s up with that? Although it has a bed, Hyundai calls the Santa Cruz a “sports adventure vehicle” truck.

The global truck market is not small potatoes either. In 2023, the market was estimated at $208.6 billion. However, the GM/Hyundai project will be developed for Latin America, a market GM is no stranger to. Several Chevrolet pickups are already sold there, including in the country Colorado and Silverado.

Power of the GM suggests that when the co-op truck hits the market, the new pickup will replace either the Chevy S10 Max or the Chevy D-Max, which are themselves rebadged Maxus T70 and Isuzu D-Maxrespectively.

This isn’t Hyundai’s first big collaboration. Globally, Hyundai and Toyota are partners in future mobile technologies, robotics and rally races. In the US, Hyundai has ties to Waymo and provides Ioniq 5 vehicles for his self-management fleet.