Hyundai is now in the business of selling cars, and also Pikachu.
In South Korea, the company has teamed up with Pokémon Korea to sell paid display themes for Hyundai models with the ccNC system.
That means Pikachu and Ditto can show up on the instrument and infotainment screens, complete with themed colours and start-up animations, if owners buy the add-on through the MyHyundai app and Bluelink Store.
It sounds like a small thing, maybe even a gimmick. But it says quite a lot about where carmakers think the money is going.
Not long ago, this part of the sales pitch was all about engines, ride comfort and big screens.
The screen itself is now the product too. Once the car is connected, the cabin can keep changing, and the carmaker can keep selling bits of that experience.
Hyundai is presenting the Pokémon themes as a family-friendly touch, saying the car has become a shared space for parents and children, not just transport.
That is fair enough. It is also a neat test of what owners will pay for once the car is already in the porch.
So yes, Pikachu on the dashboard is cute. It is also a sign that the connected-car business is starting to behave more like the phone business, where software style and add-ons count almost as much as the hardware.
