Reuters reported on May 9 (local time) that Hyundai Motor Group is in talks with officials in Georgia to build a new electric vehicle (EV) plant in the U.S. state.
Currently, a Kia Corp. plant is in operation in Georgia, and Hyundai Motor Co. has a plant in neighboring Alabama. These two factories produce internal combustion engine vehicles. EVs such as the Ioniq 5 and the EV6 are produced in Korea and exported to the United States. The United States is the third-largest EV market in the world, after China and Europe. In the United States, 500,000 EVs were sold in 2021.
"We are excited to announce a new EV plant plan in the United States soon, but we do not have details to share at this stage," Hyundai said in a statement.
Details of the investment, including its projected cost and the number of jobs it would be expected to create, were not immediately known, according to the report.
Once the new plant is completed in Georgia, Hyundai and Kia are expected to roll out fully electric SUVs -- the IONIQ 7 and the EV9 -- aimed at the U.S. market, Reuters reported.
After announcing a mid- to long-term investment plan in the United States in May 2021, Hyundai Motor Group chairman Chung Eui-sun reportedly formed a task force to select a site for an EV plant in the United States.
When Chung went on a business trip to the United States last month, experts predicted that he would finalize the plant site selection. However, at the time, Hyundai Motor Group announced it would invest US$300 million to build an EV production line in its Alabama plant and produce the EV version of the Genesis GV70 and the Santa Fe hybrid at the line. Then came the Reuters report of the group's plan to build a factory dedicated to EV production in Georgia.
Hyundai had been working to announce its U.S. investment in EV manufacturing sometime later this month to coincide with Biden's planned visit to Seoul, Reuters reported.
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