Hyundai and Kia Q3: Profits Rise, Then Targets Get Cut

Hyundai & Kia Q3

Hyundai and Kia earn more, but warn of a harder road

Start with the good news. Hyundai’s operating profit rose 5.5% in the July to September quarter, to 2.68 trillion won, or roughly $2 billion. Kia did even better on growth: operating profit jumped 24.3% to 1.82 trillion won, about $1.36 billion, on revenue up 10.1% to 31.6 trillion won.

Now the catch. Hyundai’s revenue actually fell 3.4%, to 45.11 trillion won. Its global wholesale volume dropped 11.3% to 920,710 vehicles, because strikes at its Korean plants earlier in the year and fewer working days left it short of cars to sell. Net profit fell 24.2% to 1.93 trillion won, about $1.44 billion.

So Hyundai trimmed its plans. It now expects to sell 4.0 million vehicles worldwide in 2026, down from 4.16 million. Its target operating margin drops a full point, to 5.5%–6.5%.

Kia’s problem is different: it grew, just not as much as Wall Street hoped. Analysts expected about 2.41 trillion won of operating profit. Kia delivered 1.82 trillion. One big reason is logistics: costs linked to the war in the Middle East shaved roughly 600 billion won, around $450 million, off its profit. Kia expects that pain to last through the fourth quarter.

There is a bright spot that explains why both brands keep winning showroom battles. The US tariff on Korean cars is now 15%, down from 25%, which helped Kia’s numbers. And hybrids are flying. Kia’s US hybrid sales jumped 118% to 69,000 cars, and its US market share hit a record 5.8% for a quarter. Hyundai’s North American hybrid sales are up 56% over the first nine months.

Why it matters to you: Kia says it will keep incentives high to protect sales while those shipping costs bite. That points to deals on Kia showroom floors through the end of the year. Hybrids are the opposite story: demand is so strong that dealers are fighting over allocation, so don’t expect big discounts on a hybrid Tucson, Sportage or Sorento.

Think of it like a restaurant with a queue out the door and a broken supply truck: plenty of hungry customers, not enough food arriving in the kitchen.

Car History

How Hyundai learned to build cars from a Cortina, a Brit and a Giugiaro sketch

Ulsan, South Korea, 1968. In a brand-new factory, workers are bolting together Ford Cortinas from boxes of imported parts. The company doing it, Hyundai Motor, has existed for barely a year. Today the same company sells nearly a quarter of a million cars in America in three months. The road between those two moments is stranger than most people realize.

The first Hyundais weren’t really Hyundais. The company was founded in 1967 and started out assembling the Cortina under a deal with Ford. Hyundai’s own history admits the Cortina broke down a lot on rough Korean roads. That frustration pushed the company to design its own car.

The man who ran production came from British Leyland. In 1974 Hyundai hired George Turnbull, former managing director of BL’s Austin-Morris division, on a three-year contract. He brought a small team of British engineers with him, and two Morris Marinas to study. That’s why some historians say the first Pony feels a bit like a Marina underneath.

The Pony was an international mix. Its body was drawn by Giorgetto Giugiaro of Italdesign, and its engine and running gear came from Mitsubishi. It debuted at the Turin Motor Show in October 1974 and went on sale in late 1975. It sold 10,726 units in its first year and grabbed 43.6% of the Korean market. The first export market wasn’t America or Europe. It was Ecuador, in 1976.

A lost Hyundai inspired a movie star. Giugiaro also drew a wedge-shaped Pony Coupe concept for the same 1974 show. Hyundai cancelled it in 1981, just before production. But its sharp lines fed into Giugiaro’s design for the DeLorean DMC-12, the Back to the Future car. The original concept no longer existed, so in 2023 Giugiaro and his son rebuilt it from scratch and unveiled it at Lake Como.

Why it still matters: When the Pony reached Canada as a 1984 model, Hyundai hoped for 5,000 sales and sold about 25,000. That same pattern of cheap, honest cars beating expectations is exactly what today’s record US quarter is built on.

Volkswagen

VW freezes the electric Golf with no restart date

Volkswagen has fully suspended development of the all-electric ID. Golf, according to a memo reported by Reuters. VW brand boss Thomas Schaefer said the company simply can’t fund the program right now, and called it a hard call given what the Golf means to VW and its Wolfsburg home.

The timing says a lot: the freeze landed as Europe’s biggest carmaker posted its worst quarterly loss in more than a decade. The electric Golf was first meant for 2026, then slipped to 2028–2029, then 2030. Now even that looks shaky. Gas, hybrid and plug-in Golfs carry on in the meantime, and the works council insists the 2030 goal still stands.

Audi Tariffs

Audi may win a tariff break for its Georgia plant

Audi is asking Washington to cut the tariff on its European-built cars from 15% to 7.5%, and officials are expected to settle around 10%. The prize on offer is a planned $4 billion plant in Georgia that would employ about 4,500 people and build up to 200,000 SUVs a year, with construction starting in 2027. Audi says tariffs cost it about €1.2 billion in 2025, and a wider relief program for carmakers that invest in the US could follow within weeks.

Used Car Prices

Used EVs now cost more than used gas cars

The average used EV sold for $32,533 in September, up 9.8% in a year, according to an iSeeCars study of over 1.5 million cars. That’s $579 more than the average used gas car. A year ago, EVs were $2,227 cheaper. They’re also selling faster: about 42 days on the lot versus almost 55 for gas cars. Higher fuel prices are driving the shift, so if you were waiting for cheap used EVs, that window is closing.