Hyundai is making all the right and bold movements lately. The most recent one gave the green light to its U.S. division for the development of the new pickup truck. What is still vague is the time when it might hit the showrooms and even start testing the vehicle, but the go light is a sure thing that we will see one rolling down the assembly line in several years time.
What is a generally accepted notion is that the new truck might look a lot like a small pickup concept called the Santa Cruz, which Hyundai first unveiled in 2015. The companies CEO’s also confirmed that after Hyundai successfully hit the crossover utility vehicles and SUVs market, the next logical thing is to branch out into the pickup market.
One thing that company CEO’s forget is that a breakthrough in the truck market, especially in the US, is a lot more difficult than when you try to win over the SUV market and buyers. The US market is especially specific when it comes to these things. The most loyal in the auto business are the truck buyers which is why foreign brand pickups have struggled to take the sales away from, let’s say, the Ford F-Series, Chevy Silverado and Ram models.
This is something you probably do not know about, but in 2017 Toyota and Nissan have combined their power to capture just 7 percent of the full-size pickup market, and that is according to industry research firm Autodata. Since the situation of full sized pickups in the US market is like this, Hyundai will take a smart approach and target the small truck piece of market and buyers. This was also something that Honda did back in the day when they tried to roll out the Ridgeline model, which is still sluggish when sales are considered totaling at around 21.182 this year.
