Hyundai Motor’s European Bridgehead

Carmaker puts online its expanded car plant in Czech Republic capable of producing 300,000 cars annually

Hyundai Motor Co. officially dedicated its expanded auto plant in Nosovice, Czech Republic, on Sept. 24 with a slew of dignitaries including local government officials and top executives of the automaker in attendance.
Built at the cost of 1.7 trillion won, the newly expanded car plant will hire 2,000 local people, turning out 300,000 cars annually by 2011, the company said.
With mass production begun in November last year, Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Czech (HMMC), a fully-owned subsidiary of Seoul-based Hyundai Motor Co., has the current capacity to build 200,000 vehicles annually, which will be increased to 300,000 units per year in 2011.
The first vehicle to be produced was the award-winning i30 C-class five-door hatchback, and was joined by its sister model, the i30cw (estate wagon), in February of this year. The third model to be built by HMMC will be the Kia Venga, a B-segment MPV, the production of which will start in the last quarter of 2009, while a fourth model will be added in 2011, when production capacity will be increased to 300,00 units per annum in a three-shift operation. With the completion of the Czech factory, Hyundai Motor now has a production foothold in all major markets including the United States, China, India and Turkey. This global production network will enable the company to supply top-quality vehicles to customers around the world more quickly and efficiently.
“With our global production system, we will continue to focus on providing the highest quality vehicles, the most important principle of our management philosophy. Our goal is, and always has been, to become one of the world’s leading automotive companies,” said Hyundai Motor Co. Vice Chairman Chung Eui-son at the opening ceremony.
“The Nosovice plant has a very vital role to play in realizing our global goals. So we will carefully nurture this new plant to make it an exemplary facility within the global automotive industry,” Chung continued.
Production of the i30 hatchback and wagon, both designed at Hyundai’s European Design and Technical Center in Russelsheim, Germany, recently hit 80,000 units since November of last year. Approximately 90 percent of the models rolling out of the Nosovice plant are sold in Europe, while the remaining 10 percent are exported to the Middle East and Africa.
Fulfilling Hyundai’s promise to provide a significant impetus to the growth and development of the Czech economy, 2,000 new jobs have been directly created at the new plant. At the supplier level, a further 4,000 jobs have been created, taking the total number of associated employment to 6,000. By 2011, the company plans to extend its number of direct and indirect employees to 3,500 and 7,500, respectively, creating 11,000 jobs in total.
The newly-expanded Czech plant is a self-sufficient car plant, equipped with a variety of facilities including those for body, painting, outfit and transformer, among others. The car plant also has car storage and parts storage facilities, a logistics facility, and delivery test facility, which are all new and top quality, as they have been completed only recently.
It has 290 robots to make plant operation almost automatic. The auto plant also has test tracks for new cars including 1.4-km-long and 3.3-km-long test run tracks for all kinds of vehicles.
The significance of the new car plant is the synergy it will create with the Kia Motors car plant in Jilina, Slovakia, only 85 km away, or two hours away by car. Transformers produced at the Czech plant can be delivered to the Kia plant and engines produced at the Kia plant can be delivered to the Czech plant in only two hours. The synergy provides the Czech plant with the benefit that it will not have difficulties at the early stages of operation, as its products already have a ready-made market for its products including cars and parts.
With the dedication of the expanded Czech plant, total annual car production at Hyundai-Kia Automotive Group’s plants at home and abroad will reach 6.5 million cars by 2012. nw

(right) An aerial view of the new Hyundai Motor plant in Nosovice, Czech. A view of the new Hyundai Motor plant in Nosovice, Czech Republic, where workers are already busy working on assembly lines.