Hyundai utes being 'studied'

If Hyundai flicked the switch to build a ute, it could potentially boost its global sales by a significant percentage. But the company says the cost of developing an all-new model is the biggest hurdle at present. Frank Ahrens is the Director of Hyundai's global PR arm and he explained to motoring.com.au that plans to build a ute or 'pick-up' were not in place at the present time, but wouldn't rule it out either. "Right now there's no plans to do a pick-up. We continue to study it, and we well know that our competitors have very popular utes all throughout Oceania and South East Asia." The biggest hurdle for the Korean car maker in terms of green-lighting a new ute is the high cost of developing an all-new platform. Ahrens hinted that if Hyundai was to build a ute, it would have to be a global model and America would be a necessary destination. To succeed in the US, a Hyundai pick-up would have to be larger than the standard-sized utes we see in Australia, something more like Toyota's Tundra than the HiLux. "In general, obviously the US market is the driver ... Company's like the big three in the United States and Toyota and Nissan, they've been doing these [utes] for a long time, they've amortised their costs pretty much. "If you want to start by doing a new pick-up it's a very heavy cost up front and we're very focussed on having all of our vehicles profitable from the beginning, so it has to have a big impact initially."