“We had eight vice presidents when I became president,” he said. The lean management organization Krafcik employs at Hyundai Motor America is able to react rapidly to market requirements. “Everything I’ve done in the auto industry, going back to my lean production studies at MIT, have been about frugality and avoiding waste.”
“I’m very wired to be sympathetic to that set of goals,” he said. Krafcik attributes his success to his identification with the company’s three goals of diligence, frugality and harmony. Krafcik has evidently succeeded in navigating the tricky currents of Korean/American relations where his predecessors failed, with increasingly appealing and competitive products as the result. The resulting friction saw the company go through four presidents in the five years before ex-Ford engineer John Krafcik took the helm in 2008. office, despite their greater familiarity with the customers here. In the past, corporate bosses in Korea have seemed reluctant to trust the judgment of the non-Koreans who work in the U.S. Hyundai has made its astounding strides despite a few handicaps that made such progress seem unlikely. The 2011 Sonata is as good as anything in the class. In 2006 Hyundai took the conservative path with a solid, if undistinguished family sedan. If the engine bay doesn’t have to be large enough for a V-6, then the car can be smaller while the cabin is larger.Īs recently as 2005, the Sonata was a stereotypical Korean knock-off, aping the styling of the Jaguar S-Type like a sidewalk vendor’s faux Louis Vuitton handbag.
The Sonata comes to the market at the small end of the spectrum compared to the current Accord and Camry, but with more room inside than most of its competitors. With only a four-cylinder engine available, the steel in the Sonata’s front frame rails can be thinner and it can use smaller brakes than if it had the bigger engine, explained John Krafcik, president and CEO of Hyundai North America. The availability of a heavier, bulkier and brawnier V-6 meant that many of the old Sonata’s parts had to be enlarged to handle the engine, even though few customers actually bought it. In the Sonata’s case, that meant ditching the V-6 engine that accounted for about 10 percent of sales in the previous model. Hyundai’s new Sonata is in the weight-loss vanguard, its designers not only wringing pounds out of some of its parts, but also rethinking the approach to the mid-sized sedan segment. A star for the company in the last month or so has been its 2011 Sonata family sedan, an all-new car that has more than doubled its market share compared to a year ago, achieving sales on par with Nissan’s excellent Altima sedan.Ī key attribute of the Sonata is that it is lighter than its competitors, which gives it an advantage in fuel economy and performance.