A delivery worker flies through the sky in a car to deliver food, and a fast-food drive-thru is perched high up in the air.
These are parody videos that flooded social media after Tesla unveiled its flying new sports car, the Roadster, on October 15.
While Tesla has astonished the world with its new technology, concerns are simultaneously growing at home regarding Hyundai Motor, which has recently seen a sharp drop in sales.
Hyundai's global sales fell 16% from the previous month, and domestic sales plummeted 25.7%. Experts pointed to the absence of a low-cost electric vehicle lineup and the offensive from China as Hyundai's biggest current weaknesses.
[Lee Jae-il / Automotive Analyst: Looking at what is being pointed out as Hyundai's current weaknesses, it first lacks a lineup of low-cost electric vehicles. BYD is now entering the domestic market, and vehicles like the Tesla Model Y are being imported cheaply from China. Without a model to defend against this, it is losing market share in the domestic market.]
Issues regarding cost-effectiveness were also raised, with consumers saying that given similar prices, they ultimately end up choosing models with better value for money, commenting as follows:
[Kwon Soon-woo / Managing Director, Sampro TV: If you ask what the car with the best cost-effectiveness is these days, people say the Model Y. In the past, what were the cars with the best cost-effectiveness? Cars like the Sonata, Santa Fe, and Avante, for example. Of course, this is when you pack in all the options, but if they try to sell an Avante for over 40 million won, that is a price that makes it hard to reach for readily.]
Experts advised that while the sluggish quarterly performance cannot be concluded as a "crisis for Hyundai," it is a time when a clear future strategy is needed.
[Kwon Soon-woo / Managing Director, Sampro TV: There is certainly an aspect where the era of autonomous driving and electric vehicles is arriving a bit late, but Chinese automakers are showcasing this so globally that the U.S. and Europe seem to be pondering much more seriously than we are that we can no longer just buy time and hold out.]
Netizens who encountered the news showed various reactions, such as "If Hyundai doesn't prepare properly, a real crisis might come," "Tesla's technology is amazing no matter how many times you see it," and "The era has come where we are even falling behind Chinese cars."
(Planned by Yoon Sung-sik | Video Editing by Kim Na-on | Video Source: News Hunters | Produced by SBS Digital News)
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