South Korean automaker Hyundai Motor Co. held a ceremony Thursday to kick-start its secondhand car certification program at a company facility in Yangsan, South Gyeongsang Province.

The program aims to mitigate the information gap concerning vehicle condition and pricing by directly verifying 270 inspection points from manufacturers and employing big data and artificial intelligence (AI) for pricing, according to the automaker.

Online sales of the certified secondhand cars will begin on November 24.

Statistics from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport showed that the number of used car transactions last year reached 3.76 million units, twice the number of new car registrations at 1.68 million units.

However, the used car market has been dubbed a “lemon market,” where low-quality goods are traded because consumers are not well-informed about the conditions of the vehicle they want to buy.

Hyundai Motor’s certification program helps alleviate such concerns.

Only accident-free vehicles under five years old and less than 100,000 kilometers on the odometer are eligible for sale in the program. For Hyundai’s models, 272 diagnostic tests are required.

The automaker unveiled a facility in Yangsan dedicated to ensuring quality certification and overseeing the commercialization process. The center replaces essential consumables such as engine oil and conducts tasks such as sheet metal repairs, restoring gloss, and performing painting work.

In addition to the center with a capacity of 60 vehicles per day, Hyundai Motor plans to operate a center with 30 vehicles per day in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province.

Hyundai Motor also added that pricing will be done using big data and AI.

The newly developed AI system relies on a database containing approximately 80 percent of domestic used car transaction information over the past three years while suggesting the best price option based on the vehicle’s conditions.

By Park Je-wan and Han Yubin

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