Hyundai Motor designs the future of mobility in Irvine studio

IRVINE, Calif. -- White sneakers, gray nail polish, pink goggles and orange remote controls are not something visitors expect to see in car design studios. But such colorful accessories were displayed on the walls and scattered on the desks inside the Hyundai Design and Technical Center in Irvine, California.

“These are props collected for inspiration,” said an official of the design center.

It is one of Hyundai Motor’s three global design studios, along with one in Namyangju, South Korea and another in Germany.

It designs concept cars, with indoor and outdoor car testing facilities, as well as computer numerical control machines used to make clay models. It carries out more than five projects annually to release new designs.

“All models Hyundai Motor manufactures are created through close collaboration between the design centers in Namyangju, the US and Europe with technology centers in India and China,” said Ha Hak Soo, head of the US design center, on Tuesday.

“But when developing a new car, we became competitors for new ideas,” he told reporters at the Irvine design center on Tuesday.

Since 2022, Ha has been leading the design studio. Before joining Hyundai Motor in 2015, he worked at Ford Motor Co. as a design manager and guided the design direction of the Ford Explorer, Edge and Lincoln Zephyr SUVs.

Opened in 2003, the 30,082-square-meter studio accommodates about 50 Hyundai automobile designers from around the world. The $30 million state-of-the-art facility is responsible for everything from car design to styling, model manufacturing and color and material development.

In 1992, the Irvine design studio came into the spotlight with the release of Hyundai Motor’s first concept car, the HCD-1, which was selected as Concept Car of the Year. It was the concept of Hyundai’s Tiburone, a sports coupe.

Another one of its concept models, the HCD-4 unveiled in 1999, was born as the first-generation Santa Fe and became Hyundai Motor's flagship SUV. Its cumulative global sales have reached 1,111,062 units. HDC stands for Hyundai California Design Center.

The US design house designed the sixth-generation Sonata sedan, dubbed the YF Sonata, released in 2009. Acclaimed as the Sonata model with the most unconventional design in the series, it led its golden age.

The Irvine studio also oversaw the interior designs of the Staria Minivan, the mid-size SUV Santa Fe and the subcompact SUV Kona, as well as the Genesis Coupe. 

It is now taking a step forward with futuristic designs, including one for its urban air mobility, or a flying car under development by Supernal LLC, a unit of Hyundai Motor Group. 

The Tucson Beast is featured in the 2022 film Uncharted. The modified version of the subcompact SUV was designed in collaboration with Sony Pictures Entertainment.

Hyundai Design and Technical Center also designed the concept of The Hyundai N 2025 Vision Gran Turismo, a high-performance hydrogen-fuel car unveiled in 2015.

“In the past, Hyundai Motor was a ‘fast follower’ that emulated the various designs of global carmakers such as Ford and BMW,” said Ha. “But Hyundai Motor is now building its design leadership by reinterpreting its past heritage and finding its own identity.”

Write to Jung-Eun Shin at newyearis@hankyung.com
 


Yeonhee Kim edited this article.