Do we like them?

Do we like Hyundai?

Hyundai Motor Company makes cars, SUVs, EVs and hybrids. It is based in Seoul, South Korea.

Our score: 5 out of 10. Mixed. Big EV and hybrid push, but a US safety fine, child-labour claims in its Alabama supply chain, and the Georgia raid fallout. We'd back it only cautiously.

Hyundai Motor is South Korea's biggest carmaker and the flagship of the wider Hyundai Motor Group. Chung Euisun chairs the group. José Muñoz is the CEO, and he laid out a hybrid-heavy, profit-focused plan to 2030 at investor days in 2025 and 2026.

The safety record has a big blot on it. In 2020 the US safety regulator NHTSA said Hyundai and Kia moved too slowly to recall over a million cars with engines that could fail. Hyundai agreed to pay $54m and invest $40m in safety, with another $46m deferred if it meets conditions.

Then came child labour. In 2022 Reuters reported that a Hyundai-owned parts supplier in Alabama had used underage workers. In 2024 the US Labor Department sued Hyundai's Alabama plant and two others, alleging a 13-year-old worked long assembly-line hours. Hyundai said it acted fast once it learned of the alleged violations.

In September 2025 federal agents arrested 475 people at the Hyundai-LG battery site in Georgia, most of them Korean workers. Hyundai said none were directly employed by it. A year later, Hyundai Motor Group said it wasn't involved in claims from partner-company workers who say they were unlawfully held.

On the plus side, it is spending heavily on EVs and hybrids, and it runs education projects like one launched in Indonesia in October 2026. But the recall fine and the supply-chain labour failings keep it at a middling five out of ten.