Hyundai CEO José Muñoz has revealed the drop-off in the American EV market has made manufacturing robotaxis the “number one” way of profiting from the company’s electric vehicle production. 

EV sales in the USA have fallen to their lowest level since 2022, with sales of the vehicles plummeting by 20 per cent in January compared to where the figures were in December 2025. The fall has been shocking since the US government’s $10,500 tax credit for electric cars expired.

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That has resulted in several leading manufacturers pivoting more towards hybrids and scaling down their EV production, but Hyundai is bucking that trend by finding other ways of making their electric vehicle assets work harder.

While their rivals “decided to write down their assets, we decided to make the most of our assets”, Muñoz said last Thursday. “The other thing we’ve done is look for new business opportunities with the EV, and the number one biggest opportunity is robotaxis.”

Hyundai entered into a multi-year strategic partnership with Waymo, the American autonomous driving tech company that runs fully driverless ride services across 15 major cities in the USA.

Under the deal, Waymo’s autonomous tech is being integrated into Hyundai’s all-electric IONIQ 5 SUV as the cars are added to the ride-service fleet. 

The Korean carmaker is also part of the Motional joint venture with automotive tech company Aptiv, which is using autonomous IONIQ 5s in a robotaxi service in Las Vegas.

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Muñoz said the company is already making a profit from building the robotaxis, promising “tens of thousands” of them will be made for Waymo at Hyundai’s manufacturing plant in Savannah, Georgia.

Hyundai’s reliance on robotaxis comes as fully autonomous ride-service vehicles loom as an increasingly important source of revenue from EV manufacturing, especially in America.

Tesla’s CyberCab was officially launched for paid rides in Austin, Texas on September 3, and the model is now making its first tour down under. However, due to Australian laws, it’s just here for display only, as fully autonomous vehicles – unlike Teslas fitted with the company’s Fully Self Driving (Supervised) tech – aren’t allowed to operate down under.