Hyundai Motor invests in U.S. EV charging startup AmpUp

An EV is being charged at a charging station in Seoul on March 14. [YONHAP]

Hyundai Motor made an equity investment in a U.S. EV charging startup last year, according to its annual financial report.

The carmaker acquired a 2.13 percent stake in AmpUp, a Santa Clara, California-based EV charging service startup, for 369 million won ($276,611) in December last year, its report filed on March 15 showed.

AmpUp, founded in 2018, provides comprehensive EV charging services in North America. It previously received investments from the Hyundai Cradle investment team under the company in 2020, of which the amount had not been disclosed.

Hyundai Motor also invested 1.2 billion won in BOS Semiconductors, a local startup specializing in automotive chip design, in December. It is part of the 2 billion won investment into BOS that Hyundai Motor Group announced in June last year, according to the carmaker. Other Hyundai Motor affiliates executed the remaining 800 million won investment.

Hyundai Motor said in June that it would “forge a close partnership with BOS” to develop advanced automotive chips.

BOS Semiconductors, founded in 2022, garnered over 10 billion won in investments so far.

According to the annual report, Hyundai Motor plans to invest 4.9 trillion won in research and development (R&D) this year, an 18.6 percent increase from the previous year’s 4.1 trillion won.

Hyundai’s R&D expenditure has been on a constant rise, from 3.1 trillion won in 2021 and 3.5 trillion won in 2022.

Moreover, the company will spend 1.9 trillion won in strategic investment this year, up from last year’s 1.4 trillion won.

Other segments of Hyundai's plan for investments and capital expenditures this year are set to decline from the previous year. Spending on facility expansion and construction will be inched down from last year’s 2.3 trillion won to 2.2 trillion won. Hyundai also plans to spend 1.7 trillion won on product development this year, down from 2.1 trillion won the previous year.

BY SHIN HA-NEE [shin.hanee@joongang.co.kr]