Even as Hyundai has lifted the veil on its forthcoming Ioniq 6 battery electric vehicle, Hyundai Motor is planning to construct a facility in South Korea for producing electric cars according to online reports.
It’s South Korea’s first new car plant in nearly three decades. The company’s union announced on Tuesday production is expected to start by 2025.
Hyundai Motor Group, which is made up of Hyundai and Kia, said it would spend $48.1 billion, or ₩63 trillion, in South Korea by the year 2025.
Similar to their U.S. plans
The move comes after Hyundai announced plans to spend $5.54 billion to set up an EV manufacturing complex near Savannah, Georgia. The factory will be able to manufacture 300,000 electric vehicles annually, together with their batteries.
Located more than 250 miles southeast of Atlanta along I-16, the project will span approximately 3,000 acres. The automaker plans to hire 8,100 people who will build vehicles for all three of the South Korean carmaker’s brands: Hyundai, Kia and Genesis.
The initiative accounts for a sizable chunk of the $7.4 billion Hyundai officials stated they will invest in the U.S. market electrification. Hyundai is expecting to start the project in early 2023.
An expanding EV line-up
Currently, Hyundai Motor Group sells three electric vehicles in the United States. The battery-electric version of the Hyundai Kona subcompact SUV, which is also offered with a traditional driveline. Hyundai also offers the Ioniq 5, the marque’s first model based on its E-GMP architecture and the all-electric Genesis GV60 SUV.
Hyundai’s corporate cousin, Kia, uses the same E-GMP architecture for its new all-electric EV6 hatchback. In addition, Kia sells a battery-electric version of the Niro, which is also offered as a hybrid and plug-in hybrid
That will grow with the arrival of the Ioniq 6 and Ioniq 7, along with Kia’s EV7 and EV9.
The platform these vehicles will be using — dubbed E-GMP — is a skateboard-like battery-car platform that will be used for the majority of the 23 different battery-electric vehicles Hyundai is planning to offer by 2025.
What’s currently offered
The Hyundai Ioniq 5 comes in three trim levels, starting with the base vehicle’s single, rear-mounted motor delivering 218 horsepower and 258 pound-feet of torque to the rear wheels. A dual-motor, all-wheel-drive trim increases that to 320 hp and 446 lb-ft of torque.
It shares its architecture with the Kia EV6, which gets three trim levels as well. The base EV6 comes with a 58-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery pack that produces 167 hp and 258 lb-ft of torque from a single electric motor that powers the rear wheels. It runs 232 miles on a charge.
A larger 77.4 kilowatt-hour pack is available that generates 225 hp and 258 lb-ft of torque, and is good for 310 miles between charges. A dual-motor, all-wheel drive variant with the same battery pack produces 320 hp and 446 lb-ft of torque, but range drops to 274 miles.
Genesis, Hyundai’s luxury brand, also sells a vehicle using the E-GMP platform, the GV60. The battery-electric SUV is powered by dual electric motors that generate 314 hp and 446 lb-ft of torque and provides an EPA-estimated range of 248 miles per charge. Adding the Performance Package increases output to as much as 446 hp. Need more punch? Just jab the “Boost” button to extract 483 hp and 516 lb-ft for up to 10 seconds. It orders up 60 mph in about four seconds.
Hyundai also offers electric versions of traditionally powered vehicles that do not ride on the E-GMP platform, as they are share their components with traditionally-powered driveline models.
The subcompact Kona battery-electric SUV is powered by a 64-kWh battery that generates 201 hp to the front wheels for 258 miles between charges. Similarly, the all-electric version of the Kia Niro, which also has 201 hp being sent to the front wheels, although the EPA rates its range at only 239 miles.
Like all automakers, ramping up EV production is essential to meet governmental regulations that seek to slowly eliminate production of vehicles powered by internal combustion engines.
“Sales of internal-combustion-engine vehicles are scheduled to be banned in certain markets, so the new EV factory is vital to Hyundai Motor’s survival,” said Chang Moon-su, an analyst at Hyundai Motor Securities, a subsidiary of the automaker.