Hyundai Motor Co. is gearing up to seize a chunk of the steadily growing eco-friendly vehicle market that by 2020 is expected to have grown a stellar 360 percent.

The carmaker, the flagship of the world‘s fifth-largest automotive conglomerate Hyundai Motor Group, on Thursday detailed to the media its plans for fuel cell electric vehicles at a showing for a version of the Tucson that the company says is the only mass-produced FCEV in the world to date.

On Friday, the company went further to commit to introducing a full range of green vehicles over the next few years driven by hybrid, electric power and fuel cell propulsion systems.

The carmaker predicts that demand for low and zero emission vehicles will reach 8 million units in 2020, or 7.6 percent of all car sales, with growth being centered on the critical markets of China, the United States and Europe.

The numbers would represent a 360 percent surge in sales compared to 1.74 million such vehicles sold worldwide in 2013.

“Growing consumer demand and the universal move by countries to implement tough emission reduction rules make it imperative for all carmakers to make green vehicles,” Hyundai said in a press release.

In the shorter term, eco-friendly car sales were estimated to hit 2.64 million units in 2015, a gain of nearly 52 percent from last year, the company said.

While Hyundai may have been slow to push into the market along with its sister brand Kia Motors Corp., the two companies held about a 4 percent market share as of last year even though it only sold the Sonata and Optima hybrids in the global market. The market share placed the company behind Toyota, Honda, Ford and the Nissan-Renault Alliance.

“Diesel and gasoline engines are used in 95 percent of all cars sold globally so Hyundai must concentrate on these areas, but the company has been gearing up behind the scenes to tackle challenges related to low emission vehicles,” said Lee Ki-sang, senior vice president and head of Hyundai’s Eco-Friendly Vehicle R&D Center. (Yonhap)