Upstart? Definitely.
Startup? Perhaps rapid growth mode might be appropriate?

 

Agreed, Tesla was founded in 2003, 18 years! They've already sold over a million Model 3's (released in 2017). Definitely not a start-up as some say.

 

KIA is not wholly owed.

 

Friendly suggestion to the mods that we move the Hyundai/Kia ownership discussion to its own thread. This thread is way off track from being about sales reports.

 

Moved to it's own thread

 

I love conversations about Hyundai and Kia's ownership structure and it's relationship to the chaebol. Honestly quite complex and drawing a parallel to other brands like Toyota is a disservice.

 

This, exactly. A better analogy would be to compare Hyundai and Kia to Toyota's relationship if they finished buying Subaru or Mazda. They work from the same component set, but they develop the resulting vehicles separately. Kia has its own culture because it was at one time a separate company and was then acquired by Hyundai. (This also true of GM divisions, but that happened a century ago and is therefore irrelevant at this point.)

 

Everything in this post is misinformation and reading through the thread would immediately clear up these misconceptions.

It's really funny to me how people would rather indulge in this fiction rather than acknowledge that Hyundai Motor Group is outperforming Honda.

By the way, prior to being under the Hyundai Motor Group umbrella, Kia merely existed to repackage Ford or other Ford-owned products (mainly Mazda). Even the old KIA oval badge was literally the same shape as the Ford oval so that they could stick it on the same cars without changing any molds. So whatever "culture" Kia had evaporated the moment they were no longer rebadging Fords and Mazdas.

 

You are one of the members that do not understand corporate governance and subsidiary structure. You're just an IT guy and I'm someone that worked for Ernst & Young and Deloitte & Touche.

 

Audi is wholly (100%) owned by VW. Mazda is a separate company apart from Toyota but have technical partnerships such as Toyota and BMW with the Supra. Toyota does own 20% of Subaru as a shareholder.

 

But Toyota indeed does have an ownership stake in Mazda. Like they do in Subaru. As well as Suzuki. Just like Hyundai Group has a onwer ship stake in KIA. None are fully onwer like the way VW owns Audi. Toyota does fully own Hino as well as Daihatsu

Back to Hyundai…KIA is not fully owned by Hyundai and their ownership is not similar to Honda/Acura or Toyota/Lexus or Hyundai Genesis which are just brands/divisions and not separate operating companies/manufacturers

 

Thanks it's not that i don't understand, it's that the information i'd read was ambiguous. If it's to be believed, now i see that wiki says hmg did have 51% after kia went bankrupt but now has about a third, whereas, yes, i thought they owned all of kia. Kia also owns chunks of hyundai subs, quite an odd setup.

Hyundai Motor Company takeover

Kia declared bankruptcy in 1997, during the Asian financial crisis, and in 1998 reached an agreement with Hyundai Motor Company to diversify by exchanging ownership between the two companies. Hyundai Motor Company acquired 51% of the company, outbidding Ford Motor Company, which had owned an interest in Kia Motors since 1986.[20] After subsequent divestments,[21] Hyundai Motor Company owns about one third of Kia Motor Corporation. While Hyundai Motor Company remains Kia's largest stakeholder, Kia Motor Company also retains ownership in some 22 Hyundai Motor Company subsidiaries.

 

I hope that this post will not be considered off-topic, since the thread has taken several different directions, but one significant relationship between the two companies, at least as I see it, is their marketing-objective and how they actually design and build vehicles. Using (at least most of the time) commonly-derived platforms and drivetrains, Kia products tend to be more driver-centric, sport-oriented, and responsive in steering/brakes/suspension, while Hyundai products are somewhat more appliance-like. There are exceptions, such as he now-discontinued Kia K900 sedan, which was a rolling living room in the Lincoln Town Car mode, and the also-discontinued Hyundai Genesis Coupe, which was a classic Driver's Car, that, when I reviewed one with the V6, drove so much like the BMW 335i of the period that it was difficult to distinguish between the two if blindfolded. But, in general, Kias are more like Hondas, and Hyundais are more like Toyotas.

 

Hyundai Motor Company =/= Hyundai Motor Group. You understood it correctly before- Hyundai (Motor Company) and Kia are merely two subsidiaries under the Hyundai Motor Group. Everything in this image is part of the Hyundai Motor Group.

 

Wow, where do I begin?

1) Yes, I read the thread. If I hadn't, why would I bother responding to it? Condescend a little slower, please.

2) I personally have no emotional stake whatsoever in whether Honda Inc. is outperformed by Hyundai/Kia, VW, Toyota or anybody else. So the person who's assigning that motive to me based on absolutely nothing, and therefore the fiction writer, would be... why, you.

3) Anybody who's ever been part of a failed merger — as an executive, consultant or employee — or who simply understands group psychology would know that ANY organization that's been functioning for a while has a culture. No matter how ostensibly unoriginal its products, it has worked out relationships and attitudes as a group of people. That culture does not magically evaporate just because the group's ownership changes hands to an outsider.