Hyundai Motor introduced its Click hybrid model at a ceremony to celebrate the development of future vehicles, held at the Grand Hyatt Seoul on Friday. The company has provided 50 hybrid Clicks to the Ministry of Environment and becomes the first Korean automaker to mass produce road-ready hybrid cars. Hyundai is developing these vehicles because of a growing market for alternative energy cars in the wake of soaring oil prices and global emissions controls.

Hyundai Motor has invested W10.6 billion in developing the Click hybrid vehicle, which has a fuel efficiency of 18 kilometers per liter, 5.9 kilometers longer than its gasoline-powered cousins currently on the market. Hyundai Motor Chairman Chung Mong-koo said that the company plans to develop a new hybrid car model named the MC by the end of next year and will sell them on the consumer market starting in 2006. Hyundai Motor will invest W300 billion by 2010 to expand its production capacity to 300,000 hybrid cars a year.

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