Hyundai Motor Company held a groundbreaking ceremony on November for a new electric vehicle (EV) plant at its complex in Ulsan, the heart of Korea’s automotive industry.
The new EV-dedicated plant will be a human-centered facility with an innovative manufacturing platform that delivers an optimal working environment for employees. The new plant will also be the hub for Hyundai Motor’s mobility production in the era of electrification. With the new plant, Hyundai Motor’s Ulsan Plant complex will become a base of future mobility production.
Euisun Chung, Executive Chair of Hyundai Motor Group; Jaehoon Chang, President and CEO of Hyundai Motor Company; and Dong-seock Lee, Executive Vice President, Chief Safety Officer and Head of Domestic Productions for Hyundai Motor Company, attended the ceremony.
“The new EV-dedicated Plant in Ulsan is the beginning of a promising future for the next 50 years and the era of electrification. I am honoured to share our dream of a 100-year company here,” said Executive Chair Chung. “Just as the dream of building the best car in the past made Ulsan an automotive city today, I trust Ulsan will be an innovative mobility city that leads the way in the era of electrification, starting with a dedicated EV plant.”
The EV-dedicated facility will be Hyundai Motor’s first new plant in Korea in 29 years, following the opening of the Asan plant in 1996. The dedicated EV plant will lead the electrification era, provide products that exceed customer expectations and strengthen the domestic industry base.
Hyundai Motor’s new EV-dedicated plant in Ulsan will form part of a 548,000 square-metre site with a capacity to produce 200,000 EVs per year. Approximately KRW 2 trillion ($1.53 billion) will be invested in the project, with full-scale construction set to begin in the fourth quarter of this year. The construction is scheduled to be completed in 2025, and vehicle mass production will commence in the first quarter of 2026. An electric SUV from Hyundai Motor Group luxury brand, Genesis, will be the first model to be produced at the new plant.
The dedicated EV plant in Ulsan will be located on the site of Hyundai Motor’s former proving ground, a place where the company looked to the future and shaped innovation.
New plant to feature innovative manufacturing platform and eco-friendly environment
Hyundai Motor plans to apply an innovative manufacturing platform that was developed by the Hyundai Motor Group Innovation Center in Singapore (HMGICS) at its dedicated EV plant in Ulsan to future-proof the facility and prioritize employee safety, convenience and efficiency.
HMGICS’ manufacturing innovation platform includes demand-driven, AI-based intelligent control systems; eco-friendly, low-carbon construction methods to achieve carbon neutrality and RE100 certification (100% renewable energy use); and human-friendly facilities that enable safe, efficient working.
Hyundai Motor will use this to build a smart logistics system, including automated parts logistics, at the new EV plant. It will introduce a flexible production system to diversify vehicle models, respond to global market changes and automate assembly facilities to improve productivity and quality.
The company plans to create a safer, more accurate and efficient workplace with innovative technologies, such as robotics, smart logistics systems and AI to improve the working environment. A nature-friendly space design, breaking away from the closed image that comes to mind when thinking of a conventional plant will help realize the next-generation manufacturing philosophy as a cradle of eco-friendly future mobility production.
The new EV-dedicated plant will feature a nature-friendly design to reduce worker fatigue and encourage interaction with each other, a departure from the dreary factory environment of heavy machinery.
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