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| President Yoon Suk Yeol, center, shakes hands with Hyundai Motor Group Chairman Chung Euisun, left, at the groundbreaking ceremony of Kia AutoLand in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province, Tuesday. Yonhap |
By Kim Hyun-bin
Hyundai Motor Group has unveiled its medium- to long-term strategy for joining the global top three in the electric vehicle (EV) market by 2030 by injecting 24 trillion won ($18.1 billion), the company said Tuesday.
The announcement was made during a groundbreaking ceremony to build the country's first customized electric car factory, AutoLand, in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province. President Yoon Suk Yeol was in attendance, along with around 200 people, including Hyundai Motor Group Executive Chair Chung Euisun, Kia Corp. CEO Song Ho-sung and executives and workers of Hyundai Motor and Kia.
Yoon pointed out that the global automotive industry is undergoing a huge paradigm shift, as the movement towards carbon neutrality accelerates, the adoption rate of EVs increases rapidly and high-speed data transmission and AI are triggering a mobility revolution.
"We will raise Korea's electric vehicle production capacity five times by 2030 to make Korea a Global Top 3 in Future Cars," Yoon said. "Kia's EV-only plant is the first new plant built by Hyundai Motor Group in Korea in 29 years and the first step in investing 24 trillion won in the domestic electric vehicle sector by 2030."
The comments aligned with, Hyundai Motor, Kia and Hyundai Mobis' announcement that they would invest 24 trillion won in Korea over the next eight years to expand domestic production and export of EVs and strengthen related industries.
"Hyundai Motor, Kia and Hyundai Mobis plan to invest a total of 24 trillion won in the domestic EV sector by 2030, contributing to Korea's leap forward to become one of the top three global EV powerhouses," Kia CEO Song Ho-sung said.
The company aims to join the top 3 in global EV sales by 2030, by expanding annual production to 1.51 million vehicles including exports of 920,000 vehicles and increasing global EV production to 3.64 million vehicles.
The automotive group's large-scale investment is aimed at advancing the domestic EV industry and is expected to promote a virtuous cycle for domestic EV production, R&D, infrastructure and related industries.
It is promoting the conversion of production to EV-only lines at existing factories along with the establishment of a new factory for EVs tailored to customers' needs in order to expand domestic production capacity.
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| President Yoon Suk Yeol, front row thirdfrom left, applauds next to Hyundai Motor Group Chairman Chung Euisun, front row third from left, and other company and government officials at the groundbreaking ceremony for an EV factory held at Kia's AutoLand in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province, Tuesday. Yonhap |
In addition, the company is investing heavily in R&D, such as developing a platform for next-generation EVs, expanding product lineups, developing core parts and prior technologies and establishing research facilities.
The group is also working fast to secure a next-generation platform to improve the fundamental performance of EVs. The company plans to develop various dedicated platforms for each vehicle class sequentially under the Integrated Modular Architecture (IMA) system, including a dedicated platform for passenger EVs to be introduced in 2025, in order to improve product development speed and efficiency by standardizing batteries and motors.
Kia's customized EV-only factory will be made eco-friendly by applying a large number of future innovative manufacturing technologies and minimizing carbon emissions. Efficiency and intelligence are also pursued with E-FOREST technology, a smart factory brand of Hyundai Motor and Kia.
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