The Corporate R&D Center of SKIT plans to jointly participate with SKC and NEXCON in the national project of futuristic vehicles development and manage the development of the Hybrid Electric Vehicle (HEV) battery system by 2006. HEV is vehicle with higher efficiency and lower pollution that combine engines and high-power batteries. Leading automobile companies like Toyota and Honda have already put their HEV on the market.

On November 4, the kick-off meeting for the national project of diesel HEV development, led by the Futuristic Vehicle Project Team, was held at Ssangyong Motor. At the meeting were about 40 experts from related companies, such as Kwak Byong-sung, Vice-president of the Corporate R&D Center; Lee Joon-soo, Managing Director of SKC; and Kim Seung-shin, Vice President of Ssangyong Motor.

The participants saw eye-to-eye on the need to develop domestic batteries in order to commercialize diesel HEV by 2008. To this end, they promised to closely cooperate with one another centering around SK, the manager of the project.