Hyundai second US Plant plan to build a new factory with an annual production capacity of 300,000 vehicles emerged today.
[ads id=”4″ style=”float:left;padding:9px;”]The plan comes as the recovering U.S. economy is boosting demand for new vehicles. Hyundai does not want to lose market share due to failure to keep up with the demand.
“We are looking for a suitable site and closely examining business conditions,” a Hyundai executive said.
Hyundai second US plant, which will be located in the neighborhood of Hyundai’s Alabama plant in Montgomery (as well as they’re looking a few others), will likely to launch full-scale operations from 2017.
The second US factory is likely to produce SUVs as the leisure vehicle is in great demand. Some 885,000 SUVs were sold in the US in the first two months of the year, a 15 percent increase on-year.
Key factors behind Hyundai Motor’s latest decision include the brisk sales of SUVs in the US-market. Hyundai Motor America has had difficulty in meeting the increasing SUV demand in the United States due to limited production capacity of its existing assembly plant there.
Hyundai is only producing the Elantra and Sonata sedans at its factory in Alabama, while its SUVs are manufactured at affiliate Kia’s factory in Georgia or exported from Korea.
With the new factory, Hyundai’s global production capacity will reach 9.2 million vehicles in 2018. Hyundai Motor decided to establish its second US plant and planned to launch the construction within this year.
