IT was all aces for Hyundai Commercial Vehicles’ first ever Truck & Bus Mega Fair at the KINTEX Exhibition Centre in South Korea last weekend.

Edward Lee, senior vice- president commercial vehicle export division — Hyundai Motor Company, gave the three-day event thumbs up.“The event went well, better than expected as our local customers and affiliate companies liked it a lot and were very happy,” Lee told the

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Auto magazine.The inaugural Truck & Bus Mega Fair 2017 took over a large outdoor section of the KINTEX Exhibition Centre highlighting all of Hyundai’s commercial offerings. With over 170 exhibition vehicles on hand, there was more than enough for the event’s worldwide audience to see as units ranged from small buses to massive cranes. In addition to seeing the company’s commercial products on display, patrons were treated to other activities such as test drives, an onsite museum of Hyundai’s history itself and even a talent show featuring local commercial vehicle operators performing karaoke.“The reason for the Truck & Bus Mega Fair was simple: we want to extend our business by showing off our own products and that of our special projects affiliates,” Lee said.The event sees the start of a big push into the global market as Lee aims for the same success that the passenger vehicle division has managed to achieve in recent times.“We want to be a top-five player globally in commercial equipment,” he explained.The lynchpin of the mega fair was the unveiling of the unit the company expects to revolutionise public transportation sector, the ELEC CITY, an all-electric, zero-emissions bus. It was launched on May 25 at the exhibition’s opening ceremony.The unit shows off the company’s engineering skills as using roof-mounted lithium polymer batteries it can be had in two trims, a standard 256kWh or an optional short haul 128kWh version without impacting the unit’s interior packaging, a major concern for electric vehicles. Having an electric motors inside each rear wheel, in the standard trim, it’s able to achieve a class-leading distance of 290km on a single charge. More significantly, the ELEC CITY can be fully charged in under 70 minutes.Other features include electronic door sensors to stop any potential accidents while boarding and exiting and a virtual engine sound system in case operators wish not to run the ELEC CITY as quietly as possible. All this makes the ELEC CITY ahead of the competition, especially on mainland Europe where concerns over emissions have placed tough regulations on traditional internal combustion motors within their cities.