Hyundai Motor will invest more than KRW 2 trillion ($1.8 billion) in domestic facilities by 2020. In particular, it will increment annual production capacity of commercial vehicles at Jeonju factory to 100,000 units and sharply strengthen research and development(R&D).
Hyundai Motor (president Yoon Gab-han) announced that total KRW 2 trillion will be invested to enlarge factories and strengthen cooperation of R&D between passenger cars and commercial cars.
It will invest KRW 400billion to build new factories and add ones at Jeonju factory , along with investment of KRW 1.6 trillion to R&D for new cars in commercial vehicles area. In adition to these, it also announced that it would also newly build pilot complex and Global Training Center(GTC) within Jeonju factory site. Its plan is to turn over a new leaf of strong company to global commercial vehicles markets.
First of all, it will strengthen annual production capacity of 65,000 units at Jeonju factory to 100,000 units by 2020. It is forecast that production capacity will be incremented to 85,000 units in 2017 and then to 100,000 ones in 2020 by 54% increase, respectively. Thus, new 1,000 jobs will be created during this period. The deluxe model for developed markets and also diffusion model for emerging ones will be added to the lineup for enlargement of markets at home and abroad.
It is forecast that the global market size in commercial vehicles will be enlarged from 3.12 million units last year to 3.96 million ones in 2020 by 27%( 4.2% on annual average). Hyundai Motor reestablishes its determination that with deploy of new high models to unstepped markets in Western Europe and North America, it will make its bid for victory.
Especially, it will invest KRW 1.6 trillion to R&D for new models and new engines.
Some of the workforces at R&D center for commercial vehicles at research institute in Jeonju will be relocated to its R&D center in Namyangju to exert its utmost efforts in improvement of capabilities in R&D for commercial vehicles.
The GTC for its emoloyees and customers will also be established. It is expected that GTC will be a regional attraction to annually draw more than 40,000 people including employees and customers for automotive education and theme park. In particular, by its establishment of the pilot facility to be in charge of verification in mass production at Jeonju factory before its release, Hyundai Motor will plan to pull up its early stage quality.
"We will construct global R&D system in cooperation and take leap to global company in commercial vehicle areas through active investment of new cars and engine development tailor-made in developed and emerging market", the insider of Hyundai Motor said.