Hyundai’s CEO, Jose Munoz, recently made it clear that he wasn’t especially worried about potential tariffs coming from the Trump administration. Part of that was the fact that Hyundai has already invested quite a bit in setting up manufacturing facilities in the US. The other part is that Hyundai apparently has loads more American investments on the way. The company laid out its major investment plans on Monday, which will total around $21 billion. To put the scale of the investment into context, Hyundai said that its investments in the US since entering the market in 1986 have come to $20.5 billion.
Hyundai Motor Company was founded in 1967 by Chung Ju-yung, 20 years after the birth of the Hyundai Engineering and Construction Company. The automotive marque’s first model was the Cortina, birthed with the help of Ford in 1968, while its first self-developed car arrived the year after as the Pony. Since then, the company has found success with affordable cars and has consistently become known for reliability and value. Nowadays, its ventures vary from combustion, hybrid, all-electric, and hydrogen mobility solutions to robotics.
- Founded
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29 December 1967
- Founder
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Chung Ju-yung
- Headquarters
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Seoul, South Korea
- Owned By
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Hyundai Motor Group
Most Of The Money Is Going Into Manufacturing
Hyundai’s investments will span a number of sectors, and will be doled out from this year to 2028. Hyundai’s production capabilities in the US will get the lion’s share of the investment. This includes additional vehicle and parts assembly, plus steel production. For vehicle assembly, Hyundai will be upgrading its existing factories in the US. This includes its Alabama assembly plant, which builds a variety of SUVs such as the Hyundai Tucson and Genesis GV60. Also included is Kia’s Georgia plant which also makes SUVs including the Sportage and Telluride, and Hyundai’s Metaplant that builds electric cars such as the Ioniq 5. Hyundai says that it hopes to bring total annual vehicle production up to 1.2 million vehicles a year.
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Hyundai has established strong US manufacturing capabilities.
As for supporting parts, the company will be adding additional component manufacturing capacity. Aside from general car parts, Hyundai will also add more battery manufacturing capability. A previously announced steel mill will be built in Louisiana. It will be electrically-powered and utilize significant amounts of recycled scrap steel.
Expanding its manufacturing capacity in the US should help Hyundai weather potential tariffs more easily. It also already makes many of its most popular vehicles in the US. However, it may still take a couple of years for some of these investments to yield products. If there are models that may shift to American production, they may still be affected by potential tariffs until upcoming American facilities are fully online.
The Rest Is Scattered Far And Wide
The other investments will be distributed to infrastructure and technology development, much of which is being done by Hyundai’s other companies and partners. Most relevant to the car industry would be further investment in the Ionna electric vehicle charging network, as well as working on autonomous vehicles and technology with Waymo and Aptiv. Hyundai also said it will be investing in robots and mass-production for its Boston Dynamics division and AI technology with Nvidia. Hyundai also reiterated that it really plans to make and sell electric vertical take-off air vehicles. It’s partnering with Supernal, and it’s aiming to have the product by 2028.