Hyundai Motor Company

Established in 1967, Hyundai Motor Co. has grown into the Hyundai Motor Group, which was ranked as the world’s fifth-largest automaker since 2007 and includes over two dozen auto-related subsidiaries and affiliates.

Hyundai Motor, which exported its first independently-made vehicle, the Pony, in 1976, now exports over one million high-quality vehicles ranging from sedans, SUVs, trucks and buses.

In 2010, Hyundai Motor sold about 3.6 million cars worldwide, up 16.3 percent from 2009.

Hyundai Motor, South Korea’s largest automaker, sold 659,565 cars in the Korean domestic market in 2010, reaching a market share of about 45 percent. Outside Korea, the company sold about 2.9 million cars in 2010 in over 186 countries through some 5,300 dealers.

Global Operations

Employing over 78,000 people worldwide, Hyundai Motor is implementing a new global policy aimed at localization. This includes product development, design, sales, marketing, and consumer services to satisfy local customers’ tastes as well as that of the global market.

Currently Hyundai Motor has six overseas plants in the U.S., India, China, Turkey, the Czech Republic and Russia. The company will add a seventh plant by 2012, in Brazil. Hyundai Motor today has a combined global production capacity of about 3.91 million units a year (Korea Domestic: 1.86 million / Overseas: 2.05 million).Koo

Korea Production

Hyundai has three plants in Korea that have a combined capacity of about 1.86 million units a year. The plants are located in Ulsan, Asan and Jeonju.

The Ulsan plant is the world’s single largest automobile plant. The mammoth-sized Ulsan complex sits on 1,200 acres and is Hyundai Motor’s main production plant, comprising five independent plants. It employs over 34,000 workers capable of producing 5,600 vehicles daily. The plant also has its own port where up to three 42,000 ton ships can anchor at the same time. The plant is the birthplace of the Korean automobile industry and is a self-contained facility that operates its own fire station, hospital and security vehicles. The plant is also equipped with cutting-edge facilities to protect the environment, such as a waste water and sewage treatment facilities securing Hyundai Motor’s position as an eco-friendly company.

The Asan Plant, which mainly produces passenger vehicles for export, rests on 440 acres with a 4 million sq. ft. building that consists of production lines for machine press, auto frames, paint, assembly, engine and a materials plant. It is an entirely self-contained, independent automobile production complex that is capable of producing 260,000 mid- to large-size passenger vehicles annually.

The Jeonju Plant occupies a total of 317 acres of land and has 4.3 million sq. ft. in production space. It specializes in producing mid- to large-sized buses of 2.5 tons or more, trucks, and specialty vehicles. The Jeonju plant is capable of producing 70,000 units per year and in terms of the plant’s scale, it is deemed to be the world’s largest commercial vehicle production plant.

Overseas Production

U.S.

In May 2005, Hyundai Motor opened a $1.1 billion plant in Alabama, the company’s first North American manufacturing facility, which is also its most technologically advanced. Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Alabama (HMMA), which has a maximum capacity of 300,000 vehicles per year, began operations in 2006 with the production of the Sonata sedan. The plant started producing Santa Fe sport utility vehicles in the spring of 2006.

Within one year, HMMA reached 10th place in the product quality category among 37 plants in North America. In 2008, HMMA was chosen as the most productive plant in North America in the Midsize CUV category, for its Santa Fe model. HMMA took 22.6 hours to complete a Santa Fe, one of Hyundai’s best-selling SUVs. Currently, HMMA produces the all-new Sonata and Elantra.

HMMA brings Hyundai Motor’s commitment to the North American market full circle. Since 2001, Hyundai Motor has invested more than $200 million in design and testing facilities throughout the U.S. With a $30 million design center in Irvine, Calif., a $60 million proving ground in the Mojave Desert in California, and a $117 million technical center in Ann Arbor, Mich., Hyundai Motor is able to bring vehicles to life from design, to testing and now to production, in the United States.