Hyundai Motor Group is launching a pilot program for an electric-vehicle battery subscription service that separates battery ownership from the vehicle body.
The group said April 28 that Hyundai Motor and Hyundai Capital will run the pilot in the first half of this year with corporate taxis whose warranty coverage has expired.
The project is based on a regulatory exemption approved in November through the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport’s mobility regulatory sandbox, allowing separate registration of EV body and battery ownership.
Under the current Automobile Management Act, EV batteries are not registered and managed separately from the vehicle. That has been cited as a major hurdle to EV purchases because buyers face depreciation tied to battery performance decline and the cost of replacement. Hyundai Motor plans to operate a subscription service for five Ioniq 5 corporate taxis in the Seoul metropolitan area to assess how separating battery ownership affects operating costs and vehicle utilization life in real-world driving.
During the subscription period, participating taxis will pay a monthly fee to Hyundai Capital. If a battery needs to be replaced, the taxi will return the used battery to Hyundai Capital and receive a Hyundai Capital-owned battery. The service is offered through a subscription model without a separate battery purchase.
Because corporate taxis typically rack up high mileage in a short time, battery performance can deteriorate faster and replacement demand can arise sooner. Hyundai Motor Group said it will use the pilot to broadly verify whether the model can reduce operating-cost burdens and extend vehicle operating periods.
Hyundai Motor Group also said it plans another pilot in the second half of this year for general customers, offering EV sales and battery subscriptions based on separate body-battery ownership registration.
A Hyundai Motor Group official said the pilot will show what impact separating battery ownership has in actual driving conditions. The official said the group plans to later offer “innovative finance and subscription products” built around separate battery ownership to reduce consumers’ burden of buying and operating EVs and to support the government’s policy to expand EV adoption.
* This article has been translated by AI.
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