Absorbed GM’s Plant
Hyundai Motor has wrapped up the acquisition of a plant from General Motors (GM) in India, which has emerged as the world’s third-largest auto sales market. This will enable the Korean carmaker to build a production system with a minimum capacity of 1 million units in India.
In addition, when the expansion of Kia’s Anantapur plant in India and the acquired plant are completed, Hyundai Motor Group’s local production capacity in India is expected to jump to 1.5 million units. Among Hyundai Motor Group’s overseas bases, India will become the biggest production base, surpassing China and the United States.
On Aug. 16 (local time), Hyundai Motor India, based in Haryana of India, signed a memorandum of understanding with GM India to acquire GM’s Talegaon plant assets in Maharashtra. The acquisition is expected to be completed by the end of the year with approval from the Indian government, among others.
Hyundai Motor plans to start the full-scale operation of the Talegaon plant in 2025, after an expansion. Industry analysts expect Hyundai Motor to expand the plant’s current capacity of 130,000 units to around 200,000 to 300,000.
This acquisition will empower Hyundai Motor Group to build its third plant after its 820,000-unit Chennai plant and the 340,000-unit Anantapur plant of Kia Corp., which opened in 2019. The Chennai plant was established in 1998 and added the second plant in 2008.
Hyundai Motor plans to deploy some of the main internal combustion engine production lines from its existing Chennai 1 and 2 plants (with a combined production capacity of 820,000 units) at the new plant in Talegaon. The existing Chennai production line will have an electric vehicle production line. The new plant in Talegaon will serve as a kind of buffer zone for Hyundai’s “phase-by-phase electrification transition” in India.
Hyundai and Kia have sold a total of 502,821 units in the Indian market through to July this year, enjoying the second-largest market share (21.12 percent) behind Maruti Suzuki (41.73 percent), focusing on compact models.