Mercedes owns Hyundai!

Well, that's what I was told yesterday. I was speaking with a Sonata owner, complementing his car and asking if he's had any problems with it, and we got to talking about Hyundais. His Hyundai had 70k mi on it, not a single problem so far, but he locked the key inside his car and was waiting for Hyundai roadside assistance to come get him in.

At any rate, he mentioned that Mercedes owns a large chunk of Hyundai; that's why the Genesis is so good and why you don't see Hyundai badges all over it, in case you were wondering! Fwiw, Daimler sold its Hyundai shares in 2004.

I was not aware that Daimler-Benz owned part of Hyundais autombile manufacturing. I know they were invested in the Heavy Truck side of Hyundai for a while. Learn something new every day.

A lot of car manufacturers own a portion of each other.

I think Daimler owns 10% of Hyundai (which is a pretty damn nice investment for them if you ask me) - which I wouldn't classify as a majority chunk.

Given the way Hyundai is growing and Daimler is struggling, I won't be surprised if in a few years I hear Mercedes is owned by Hyundai.

Remember, in terms of profit, Hyundai is the largest car company in the world.

Dimitry said:

A lot of car manufacturers own a portion of each other.

I think Daimler owns 10% of Hyundai (which is a pretty damn nice investment for them if you ask me) - which I wouldn't classify as a majority chunk.

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The OP said that DaimlerChrysler (now Daimler) sold their 10% stake in Hyundai in 2004, and apparently DaimlerChrysler divested its interest in the Daimler-Hyundai Truck Corporation by selling its 10.5 percent stake in 2004 also.

That used to be the case but not anymore.

Hyundai is owned by no one, not even Mitsubishi.

Below is the latest list reported Mar 23, 2010 on Who owns Who in the automotives industry:


http://www.examiner.com/x-547-Sport...-Automotive-Industry?cid=edition-rss-National

regards,
ld_gen

In this modern business world of international consolidation it is sometimes hard to keep track of who owns which car marque these days. Here is a complete list of the current car companies and their perspective owners. Click on the highlighted links to see car reviews and other stories pertaining to the cars.

BMW currently owns BMW, Mini, and Rolls Royce.

Bentley is currently owned by Volkswagen.

Daimler AG owns Mercedes-Benz, Maybach and Smart.

The Fiat Group now owns: Alfa Romeo, Ferrari, Fiat, Lancia and Maserati. They also own Chrysler and Dodge plus a 20% share in Jeep.

Ford Motor Company now owns Ford, Lincoln, Mercury, Volvo and a 13.4% share of Mazda.

General Motors Corporation owns Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet and GMC. They also have a controlling interest in Daewoo whose cars are currently only available in Viet Nam and South Korea. GM also owns Opel and Vauxhall in Europe, and Holden in Australia. Pontiac is said to be discontinued for now.

Honda owns Honda, and their upmarket brand Acura.

Hyundai owns Hyundai and the fellow Korean marque, Kia.

Hummer is still owned by GM and they are considering offers to sell the brand.

Koenigsegg is a Swedish super car manufacturer.

Lotus is currently owned by Malaysian car company Proton.

Mazda owns 86.6% of itself with Ford owning the other 13.4%.

Mitsubishi is responsible for 100% of their own company, a rarity these days!

Pagani is an Italian car company who makes the Zonda supercar.

Peugot the French car maker also owns Citroen.

Porsche owns their own brand as well as a majority stake in Volkswagen.

French company Renault owns Nissan who also makes their upscale brand Infiniti.

Saab is now owned by the Dutch car company Spyker.

Saturn is owned by GM, but production has stopped and assets are being liquidated.

Suzuki took over Daewoo jointly with GM but now only uses their manufacturing facilities. They have now gone to engineering completely new cars rather than rebadging Daewoo's with cars like the new Suzuki Kizashi.

Tata Motors is an Indian car company who currently owns Jaguar and Land Rover.

Tesla is an American electric car company based in the Silicon Valley area of California.

Toyota Motor Company owns Lexus, Toyota, Scion, Daihatsu and Hino Motors, plus a share of Isuzu, and a majority stake in Subaru.

Volkswagen currently owns Audi, Volkswagen, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, SEAT and Skoda.

Well almost right.
Porsche is actually a fully owned subsidary of Volkswagen, not the other way round. Porsche did try to take over VW but failed and the head of Porsche was canned for his efforts.
Ford no longer owns Volvo, it was recently sold off to Geeley, a Chinese automaker!!
Also Aston-Martin is now owned by a group of Middle-Eastern businessmen with LOTS of money!

CanukV6,

Thanks for the most information. I've leaned a lots from this forum.

Regards,
ld_gen

wow makes ya wonder what we'll see on the road in the years to com.......

I am not sure all of those are compeletely accurate. I found this info about Nissan:

"In 1999, Nissan entered a two way alliance with Renault S.A. of France, which owns 44.4% of Nissan while Nissan holds 15% of Renault shares, as of 2008.

On April 7, 2010, Daimler AG exchanged a 3.9% share of its holdings for 3.9% from both Nissan and Renault. This triple alliance allows for the increased sharing of technology and development costs, encouraging global cooperation and mutual development."

Mark_888 said:

I am not sure all of those are compeletely accurate. I found this info about Nissan:

"In 1999, Nissan entered a two way alliance with Renault S.A. of France, which owns 44.4% of Nissan while Nissan holds 15% of Renault shares, as of 2008.

On April 7, 2010, Daimler AG exchanged a 3.9% share of its holdings for 3.9% from both Nissan and Renault. This triple alliance allows for the increased sharing of technology and development costs, encouraging global cooperation and mutual development."

Click to expand...

Quite correct.
I believe Mercedes has discovered they cannot make money with their small car range, Smart and A-Class (not sold in NA), so they are looking to get some help from Nissan & Renault who excel in this class.

CanukV6 said:

Quite correct.
I believe Mercedes has discovered they cannot make money with their small car range, Smart and A-Class (not sold in NA), so they are looking to get some help from Nissan & Renault who excel in this class.

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I think it is mostly a technology sharing motivation. As the technology in cars has increased over the years, these kind of technology sharing arrangements have become much more important than before. One only has to look at the Genesis to see that even for a very large automaker like Hyundai (more than 3 million vehicles manufactured this year) gets much of its technology from outside the company.

You might be right, but when it comes to vehicle technology, I doubt Nissan or Renault could teach Mercedes-Benz very much. M-B have always been technology inovators and introduced many of the safety and convenience features we now take for granted (ABS, Airbags, ESC, active seat belts, radar Cruise Control, etc.) in their cars long before any other manufacturers.

Besides technology sharing, such "I own a piece of you, you own a piece of me" deals make it easier to share expensive manufacturing bits, lowering unit cost for everybody. Infiniti is about to stuff Mercedes based 4 cyl engines into some of its cars. Mercedes gets to make a lot more engines, amortizing the production line tooling costs over more engines so the price per engine lowers. Infiniti gets a modern 4 cyl engine for some of its cars that is not shared with "lower" Nissans... and probably is a smoother running engine more suitable for a luxury brand. No more public perception of "the G20 is just a gussied-up Nissan."

Many auto manufacturers have teamed up to form 3rd companies that make big-ticket items like transmissions. Or teamed up to create a shared manufacturing facility. "Diamond-Star Motors" in Illinois was such a company: Mitsubishi and Chrysler (hence the Diamond-Star name - just combine the logos of Mitsu and ChryCo) was such a company; it produced cars sold under the Mitsu name and various ChryCo names. (Eclipse/Laser/Talon)

Auto companies make strange bedfellows sometimes. It's amazing how many company-to-company joint ventures there are between otherwise fierce competitors. There are a lot of "alliances" out there now for battery and alternate fuel research too.

mike c.

ld_gen said:

Hyundai owns Hyundai and the fellow Korean marque, Kia.

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Hyundai Kia Automotive Group, the holding co. which owns Hyundai Motors now only holds slightly less than 40% of Kia Motors.

CanukV6 said:

Quite correct.
I believe Mercedes has discovered they cannot make money with their small car range, Smart and A-Class (not sold in NA), so they are looking to get some help from Nissan & Renault who excel in this class.

Click to expand...

Before Mercedes approached Renault/Nissan, they approached Hyundai to jointly work on small engines but Hyundai turned them down.

Sayantsi said:

Well, that's what I was told yesterday. I was speaking with a Sonata owner, complementing his car and asking if he's had any problems with it, and we got to talking about Hyundais. His Hyundai had 70k mi on it, not a single problem so far, but he locked the key inside his car and was waiting for Hyundai roadside assistance to come get him in.

At any rate, he mentioned that Mercedes owns a large chunk of Hyundai; that's why the Genesis is so good and why you don't see Hyundai badges all over it, in case you were wondering! Fwiw, Daimler sold its Hyundai shares in 2004.

Click to expand...

I am surprised...

G-202012 said:

I am surprised...

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Talk about bringing back the dead.......

Do you realize "yesterday" was 9-1/2 years ago?

Didn't Ford own some of Jaguar at one time?

marklg said:

Didn't Ford own some of Jaguar at one time?

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Yes, they even made a Jag out of the Ford Contour. Both were ugly. Jag is now owned by Tata of India.