[2021 Green Mobility Award] Overcoming Structural Limits Through Development of Electric Vehicle Dedicated Platform

Green Mobility Award (Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy Award) Park Jin-ho, Executive Director of Battery Development Office, Hyundai Motor Company

Jinho Park, Executive Director of Battery Development Division at Hyundai Motor Company

[Asia Economy Reporter Changhwan Lee] "I feel a sense of accomplishment in contributing to Hyundai Motor Group's ability to secure excellent technological competitiveness across all types of eco-friendly vehicles and to establish a system that can flexibly respond to various market conditions through the development of battery systems for eco-friendly vehicles."

Park Jin-ho, Executive Director of Hyundai Motor's Battery Development Office, who received the Green Mobility Award (Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy Award) at the 2021 Korea Green Mobility Awards, said, "Since joining Hyundai Motor in 2003 and working for 18 years, I have been driven by a mission to provide total energy solutions for electrified future mobility."

Based on this, Executive Director Park played a major role in developing the battery system for Hyundai's dedicated electric vehicle platform, E-GMP (Electric-Global Modular Platform). E-GMP is Hyundai's dedicated electric vehicle platform that applies a body structure, chassis, motor, and battery optimized for electric vehicles.

Until now, Hyundai's electric vehicles have used internal combustion engine platforms, but using a dedicated electric vehicle platform can overcome structural limitations.

Executive Director Park explained, "E-GMP positions the battery on the vehicle floor where the drive shaft of internal combustion engine vehicles used to be, lowering the center of gravity compared to before. This low-center design improves the cornering performance of electric vehicles and enables stable high-speed driving." He emphasized, "By making the battery flat and close to a rectangular shape while maintaining a height of 130 mm to minimize volume, it allows for a spacious interior layout as well as innovative interior and exterior designs never seen before."

Leading the development of battery systems, a core component of future vehicles, Executive Director Park domestically developed and mass-produced the vehicle lithium-ion polymer battery system for the first time in the world (2009 Avante), and by 2015 established a system to mass-produce all four types of eco-friendly vehicles: hybrid, plug-in hybrid, electric, and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.

In 2016, he contributed to securing the world's best fuel efficiency by applying the world's first integrated 12V low-voltage and high-voltage battery system to Hyundai's first dedicated eco-friendly vehicle, the Ioniq, and received the Jang Young-sil Award in March 2018. In 2019, he also received the Wards 10 Best Engines Award in North America.

The E-GMP battery system dramatically improved charging and cooling performance, using an 800V ultra-fast charging method that can charge the battery up to 80% in 18 minutes, and allows driving about 100 km with just 5 minutes of charging. Compared to the widely used 400V charging method, which takes about an hour to charge the battery to 80%, this is a revolutionary change.

The standardized battery module was developed more compactly by simplifying parts compared to before. This method enables a flatter and lighter battery system configuration, improving energy density by 10% compared to before, and providing a generous driving range of over 500 km.

Executive Director Park stated, "The E-GMP dedicated electric vehicle platform battery system will be applied to various electric vehicles from Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis, starting with the Ioniq 5 electric vehicle," and added, "Through the E-GMP battery system, we plan to provide customers with various conveniences such as stable driving performance and fast charging speeds."