$5.5 Billion of this investment will go toward a new factory in Georgia that will only build electric vehicles.
The other $3 Billion will be used for EV research and development.
Kia and Genesis will also benefit.
Hyundai announced an $8.5 Billion investment into EV development and production, including a new factory in the United States.
The company will expand its lineup of electric vehicles in the coming years and its new dedicated EV factory in Georgia will make those new models eligible to US tax credits.
This is important because the changes made to these credits as part of the Inflation Reduction Act have made the automaker’s current EVs ineligible for the $7,500 rebate, and thus, less competitive.
This new factory will use $5.5 billion of the planned investment and construction work is set to begin in the first quarter of 2023.
In order to reduce costs and qualify for the rebate, local suppliers will produce the batteries used in Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis vehicles made at this assembly plant.
The other $3 billion investment will go toward the research and development of future EV programs.
Hyundai Ioniq 6 | Photo: Matt St-Pierre
These measures should help Hyundai achieve its EV sales targets, which already call for a 54% increase in global electric vehicle sales year over year in 2023, with the company aiming to sell 330,000 EVs in the next before next January.
Out of this total, Hyundai wants to deliver 73,000 EVs to US buyers in 2023, which represents an even more ambitious increase of 150% over last year.
These goals also include vehicles produced by Kia and Genesis, the other two brands of the Hyundai Group, which will also benefit from this investment package and the new factory.
Combined, the three makes accounted for 7 million vehicles sold globally in 2022, making the Hyundai Group the third largest automaker in the world.
Source: Inside EVs
