November 26, 2024

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Hyundai Motor's Global Chief Operating Officer Jose Munoz and Amazon’s Vice President for Worldwide Business and Corporate Development Marty Mallick announce a partnership between the two companies at the 2023 Los Angeles Auto Show on Thursday. (Hyundai Motor Company)

Hyundai Motor will become the first automaker to sell cars on Amazon, the company said, announcing a strategic partnership with the US e-commerce giant at a motor show Thursday.

The two companies unveiled their plan at the 2023 Los Angeles Auto Show in a joint showcase, with Jose Munoz, global chief operating officer at Hyundai Motor Company, and Marty Mallick, Amazon’s vice president for Worldwide Business and Corporate Development, delivering the presentations.

“This ideal partnership with Amazon would be an opportunity to realize Hyundai’s vision, Progress for Humanity, and the future of smart mobility with an extended business and sales network,” Hyundai Motor Company CEO Chang Jae-hoon said.

With the goal to have "everything" in store, Amazon will allow users to purchase cars directly from its website from next year, starting with Hyundai vehicles.

Amazon and Hyundai previously launched an "online showroom" for shoppers where they can browse and compare vehicles, but the actual purchase happened offline, with an actual dealer.

Customers can find their car of choice on Amazon by browsing the models, choose the trim, color, and other features on the website and make the payment online. After checking out, they can pick up the car themselves or get it delivered to their home by a local dealership.

The Korean auto giant also said it would adopt Amazon Alexa, Amazon's virtual assistant software platform, in its vehicles in 2025. The drivers can use voice control to ask Alexa to manage the in-vehicle media player or the navigation system.

With Alexa's Smart Home feature, drivers can also preset the temperature of the room in their homes, lock the front door of the house or turn lights on or off from inside the vehicles, the automaker explained.

Hyundai also selected Amazon Web Services as its cloud provider to accelerate digital transformation, the company said. With the vision of becoming a data-oriented company, the automaker said it would transfer hosting of the whole process of its research and product engineering and customer management to AWS.

By Mun So-jeong  (munsojeong@heraldcorp.com)