Kia held a groundbreaking ceremony for its dedicated plant for the production of battery-electric purpose-built vehicles (PBV). The ceremony was held at Kia’s Hwaseong plant, located in Gyeonggi Province, South Korea.
Kia will invest around one trillion
won (approximately $758 million) to secure 99,000 acres of land, with
the company planning to start mass-production in the second half of
2025. It plans to produce 150,000 units in the first full year, with the
potential to expand in line with future market conditions.
The
new PBV plant will be built as an eco-friendly plant that applies future
innovative manufacturing technologies while minimizing carbon
emissions. It will also seek efficiency and intelligence with Hyundai
and Kia’s smart factory brand "E-FOREST technologies" such as digital
manufacturing systems.
One of the innovative manufacturing
processes to be implemented at the new PBV plant is known as the
"cellular (or cell) method", which allows vehicle production based on
diverse customer demands.
The cell method is a process layout
strategy that groups together machines or workstations that are used to
produce similar products or parts. The goal of the cell method is to
create a more efficient and flexible manufacturing process by reducing
the distance that materials and products need to travel during
production. Under the cell method, machines are arranged in a way that
optimizes the flow of materials and products between workstations, with
the aim of minimizing downtime, reducing costs and increasing
productivity.
The PBV plant’s cutting-edge manufacturing system
unifies the new cell method with the original mass-production conveyor
system to allow flexible production with more customization of various
product types.
In addition, the PBV plant will be built as a
low-carbon factory by operating a dry booth, a nature-friendly
construction method, during the painting process of vehicle
manufacturing, and reducing carbon emissions by about 20 percent
compared to existing factories by utilizing natural light and
streamlining the manufacturing process.
Kia will also apply
innovative technologies such as automation of facilities using machine
learning and artificial intelligence (AI), automation of painting
quality inspection under the vehicle, automation of installation of
parts such as glass, vehicle name, and company logo, and real-time
automatic measurement quality data analysis to autonomously correct and
install the vehicle body in real time.
The new facility will be a
"human-friendly" plant by pushing automation in heavy-duty work and
tasks that require looking up at the ceiling, while enhancing the
feeling of "openness" and also reducing noise levels.
Kia plans to show SW (project name), the first model in the company’s dedicated PBV lineup, in 2025. The model will be a mid-sized PBV and will be based on the "eS" platform, a dedicated skateboard platform for battery electric PBVs, enabling various types of vehicle bodies to be flexibly combined.
SW has been developed to respond to various business demands such as delivery, ride hailing, and business-to-business (B2B) transactions thanks to its excellent load structure and spacious indoor space that reaches the height of an adult.
After launching the mid-sized SW PBV, Kia plans to expand its product lineup to large-sized PBVs that can be used for logistics, fresh food delivery, multi-seat shuttles, and mobile offices and stores as well as small-sized PBVs and mid-sized robotaxis applied with autonomous driving technology.
At the groundbreaking ceremony, Hyundai also outlined its aim to become one of the world’s top three EV manufacturers by 2030 through the combined sales of Hyundai, Kia and Genesis electric models.
Hyundai also announced that it plans to significantly expand the annual EV production in Korea to 1.51 million units and global volume to 3.64 million units by 2030. To enable such plans, Hyundai and Kia, alongside with Hyundai Mobis, plan to invest KRW 24 trillion (approximately $18 billion) in the EV sector domestically.
In 2030, Hyundai will have a total lineup of 31 EV models, including models from Hyundai, Kia, and luxury brand Genesis. Kia will launch the EV9, its first three-row seat electric flagship SUV, this year and Hyundai plans to launch the Ioniq 7 in 2024.
Hyundai’s large-scale investment aims to upgrade Korea’s EV ecosystem and strengthen its role as a hub for driving innovation in the global future automotive industry. It is also expected to promote a virtuous cycle of domestic EV production, R&D, infrastructure and related industries.
