Renault to make EVs in Busan

Busan Mayor Park Heong-joon, second right, talks with Guido Haak, far left, executive vice president of Renault Group, at their meeting in France on Wednesday. [YONHAP]

Renault Group will begin manufacturing electric vehicles at its Busan plant.

Guido Haak, executive vice president of the company, made the announcement Wednesday during his meeting in France with Busan Mayor Park Heong-joon, who is visiting Paris to promote Busan's World Expo bid.

"Renault's Busan factory is an important manufacturing base for us," Haak said.

"We will make a big investment to make 200,000 EVs [annually] at the Busan plant," he added, requesting support from the Korean and Busan city governments.

The investment size has not been announced, but Korean media outlets estimated around 1 trillion won ($772 million).

The Busan plant, built in 1997, produces internal combustion engine models like XM3, QM6 and SM6. Its annual capacity stands at 300,000.

Haak's announcement came as Renault Group CEO Luca de Meo hinted at millions of euros of investment to make Korea a key export hub for the carmaker during his visit to Korea in October.

Renault Korea Motors' latest focus on the Korean market came as it changed its name from Renault Samsung Motors in March last year.

In 1994, Samsung established Samsung Motors, which Renault acquired in 2000 following the 1997 Asian financial crisis. Renault agreed to include "Samsung" in the company name and paid 0.8 percent of annual sales to Samsung for using the name. That arrangement ended in August 2020.

BY SARAH CHEA [chea.sarah@joongang.co.kr]