Ulsan plant fueling Hyundai Motor's export growth

Industry

Published: 22 Oct. 2023, 11:00

Ulsan plant fueling Hyundai Motor's export growth

Hyundai Motor employees inspect Elantra sedan at the company's manufacturing plant in Ulsan on Wednesday. [HYUNDAI MOTOR]

ULSAN — Thousands of Hyundai and Genesis vehicles are lined up at a 830-meter dock in Ulsan Wednesday, waiting to be exported to around 200 countries.

Located around a five-minute drive from Hyundai Motor's Ulsan plant, the dock is a historical place that started Hyundai's journey to become the third largest automaker in the world. Five Pony sedans were exported to Ecuador in July 1976, which marked the first export of Korea’s domestically developed vehicle.

That automaker now exports around 3.3 million vehicles all over the world, with around 30 percent of the cars made in Ulsan, the world’s largest single automobile manufacturing plant, with an annual capacity of 1.4 million.

A view of Hyundai Motor's manufacturing plant and export dock in Ulsan [HYUNDAI MOTOR]

"With some 320,000 workers, they work day and night to make a vehicle every 9.6 seconds, which translates to around 6,000 units per day," said Kim Yoon-seok, a manager at the Ulsan plant, who led the media tour on Wednesday.

"Of all the vehicles manufactured in Ulsan, nearly 80 percent, or 1.1 million units, are exported to some 200 countries across the globe."

First built in 1967, the Ulsan plant is home to five separate factories which in total make 17 models including Ioniq 5s, Kona EVs and Genesis models. On the 5 million square meter (464,515 square feet) site, 21 public buses pass by at 44 public bus stations.

Hyundai Motor employees inspect Venue SUV at the company's manufacturing plant in Ulsan on Wednesday. [HYUNDAI MOTOR]

Vehicles are manufactured in four phases at each plant in Ulsan, where they start with pressing steel plates to make auto panels. The panels then are welded together and assembled to make car bodies.

The welding part is entirely proceeded by robots as the process requires high precision and risks, Hyundai said.

Then, the car bodies are transferred to the painting facility, where the painting and drying process needs to be done three times for each car. The process alone takes eight to 10 hours.

As the last step, employees manually install around 20,000 auto parts into the car to make a final product.

"Since very delicate works are needed for the assembly facility, about 90 percent of the process is done by employees," Kim said. "Only some heavy parts like tires and seats are done by robots."

The No. 1 factory, built in 1975, is where Pony, Korea’s first independently developed mass-production model, was manufactured. In 1986, Excel sedans were manufactured which was exported to the U.S. market in large quantity.

Hyundai Motor employees inspect Avante N at the company's manufacturing plant in Ulsan on Wednesday. [HYUNDAI MOTOR]

As of now, Hyundai produces Ioniq 5s and Kona EVs at the No. 1 factory.

The No. 2 factory, once used as a line for Grandeur sedans, is now a place to make high-margin SUVs like Palisade and Genesis GV60, GV70 and GV80.

At one side of the site, construction is undergoing to build a factory dedicated to producing EVs. Hyundai Motor is investing 2 trillion won ($1.5 billion) to make the EV plant in 71,000-pyeong (234,710-square-meter) site, with production set to start in the second half of 2025.

It will be the first domestic automotive manufacturing plant in 29 years, also Hyundai Motor's first and only EV-dedicated factory in Korea.

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