South Korean carmaker Hyundai Motor Group announced the second round of its investment plan Sunday, adding another $5 billion to collaborate with US firms, only a day after the company unveiled a $5.54 billion plan to build an electric vehicle-only factory in Georgia.
“Hyundai Motor Group plans to invest an additional $5 billion through 2025 which will strengthen our collaboration with American enterprises in diverse technologies such as robotics, urban air mobility, autonomous driving and artificial intelligence,” said Chairman Chung Euisun after a private meeting with US President Joe Biden in Seoul, Sunday morning.
“This will enable us to grow into a company that offers better convenience and safety to our customers. I humbly ask for the Biden administration’s continued support for our US operations.”
Biden responded to Chung, saying, “We won’t let you down.”
“Electric vehicles are good for our climate goals, but they’re also good for jobs. And they’re good for business,” Biden said, touting the automaker’s decision to build an EV plant in Georgia as “a new opportunity” that would create some 8,100 jobs.
The announcement was made before Biden left for Tokyo on the second leg of his Asia tour. The two talked for nearly an hour before speaking to press. Details of the additional investment in robotics and UAM will be released in the near future, according to officials. With the series of investment plans unveiled over the weekend, Hyundai is set to invest over $10.5 billion in the US alone, the largest overseas spending for the Korean company so far. The US is the largest market for the world’s third-largest carmaker.
A day earlier, the group announced a plan to inject $5.54 billion to build its first plant dedicated to electric vehicles and battery manufacturing in Georgia. Some 300,000 EVs annually are to be produced there beginning in the first half of 2025.
The plan is part of the automaker’s $7.4 billion investment in the US through 2025 announced earlier this year to expand its EV manufacturing scale and satisfy US market demand. The carmaker aims to pull up its eco-friendly models’ sales portion to 50 percent in the US market by 2030.
“US has always held an important place in the group’s global strategy, and we are excited to partner with the state of Georgia to achieve our shared goal of electrified mobility and sustainability in the US,” said Chung Euisun, who virtually attended the official signing ceremony held in Bryan County, outside of Savannah, Georgia, Saturday.
The automaker said it selected Georgia due to a range of favorable business conditions, including a talented workforce and the existing network of company affiliates and suppliers. Spanning across 11.8 million square meters in Bryan County, the new plant is just 400 kilometers from Kia Georgia.
Also leveraging the location’s accessibility to the I-95 and I-16 highways that create easy access to 250 major metropolitan areas, as well as the vicinity to Port of Savannah, the carmaker said it targets to set up a stable procurement network for EV production and sales.
With $5.54 billion, the carmaker also plans to build a battery manufacturing facility to establish a stable supply chain and build a healthy EV ecosystem in the US.
Some 8,100 new jobs are expected to be created with the establishment of the new EV factory and battery production facilities.
Currently, the automaker runs two plants in the US. Hyundai Motor’s flagship models like Sonata, Tucson, Avante (Elantra) and Santa Cruz have been manufactured in Georgia’s western neighbor Alabama since 2005. From later this year, electric and hybrid models like the Genesis GV70 and Santa Fe hybrid will be also built there.
At Georgia Kia, Kia’s flagship models like Sorento, K5 and Telluride are produced. Its production capacity is 340,000 annually. Auto parts from Hyundai Mobis are also manufactured there.
By Kim Da-sol ([email protected])
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