Tomorrow’s manufacturing today: Inside Hyundai’s EV plant near Savannah

The peek inside was part of the ceremonial grand opening for the $7.59 billion manufacturing campus. The facility is the largest economic development project in Georgia state history and is projected to employ 8,500 at full build out, including 2,600 building automobiles. The 16 million-square-foot assembly facility is designed to produce up to 500,000 vehicles per year, a number revised from 300,000 at Wednesday’s event.

José Muñoz, Hyundai North America’s chief executive, said the expanded capacity will lead to increased investment, including the potential for an additional undisclosed number of jobs.

Credit: Justin Taylor for The Current GA

Credit: Justin Taylor for The Current GA

Hyundai began production here last October with one shift. The automaker recently began hiring for a second shift although officials declined to give a timeline for when evening work will start. Hyundai currently is building its bestselling EV, the IONIQ 5, at the plant as well as an electric SUV, the IONIQ 9. It declined Wednesday to share current output.

“We have more demand than what we can produce, but we don’t want to compromise” on quality, Munoz said. “The ramp up? For me, the sooner the better.”

An EV battery manufacturing plant and a worker training center are also under construction on the 2,906-acre Bryan County site and are scheduled to open later this year. The state leveraged a $2.1 billion incentives package to woo Hyundai to coastal Georgia.

Credit: Justin Taylor for The Current GA

Credit: Justin Taylor for The Current GA

Hyundai’s top executives and several Georgia leaders, including Gov. Brian Kemp, celebrated the factory’s early success in Wednesday’s ceremony held on the factory floor. Muñoz served as the master of ceremonies and said the company was proud to “show off our new house.”

“We don’t come just to build a plant, we come to put down roots,” Hyundai Motor Group Executive Chairman Euisun Chung told attendees, which included several hundred of the factory’s current 1,232 employees.

One of those Meta Pros, Charlene Toole, spoke at the event. An Ellabell native who as a child rode 4-wheelers in the woods near what is today the Hyundai property, she said her hiring in October 2023 gave her professional purpose.

“I’m part of the foundation of the team that launched the best manufacturing facility in the country, if not the world,” said Toole, who works in the weld shop.

The factory uses a “smart technology” manufacturing process where vehicles, parts and supplies move about on autonomous guided vehicles, or AGVs, and automated mobile robots, or AMRs. These self-propelled electric dollies use GPS and motion detectors to navigate and complement the thousands of fixed robots that handle much of the stamping, welding and assembly functions.

The use of AGVs limits the reliance on traditional assembly line technology such as conveyor belts and allows for significant production flexibility — multiple models can be assembled at the same time and manufacturing flaws in one vehicle can be addressed by moving it off the line — without slowing or stopping production.

Credit: Justin Taylor for The Current GA

Credit: Justin Taylor for The Current GA

Hyundai officials on Wednesday reiterated plans to assemble EV models for all three of its brands — Kia and Genesis as well as the flagship Hyundai — at the metaplant in the future. The automaker’s goal is to grow its EV portfolio to 23 models by 2030.

The Savannah-area factory is also a future manufacturing home for Hyundai hybrids, starting as soon as 2026. The company is awaiting approval of environmental permits that would allow for storage of gasoline and other gas-engine products at the facility. Hybrids are propelled by electric batteries that are charged while in motion by a traditional gasoline-powered motor.

As much as one-third of the vehicles produced at the metaplant will be hybrids, Munoz said.

The metaplant grand opening comes as Hyundai announced this week a nearly $21 billion investment in U.S. manufacturing over the next four years. Hyundai’s Chung said Monday at a White House event a planned steel factory and other U.S. projects amount to “our largest U.S. investment ever.”

Some $9 billion of Hyundai’s planned investment will go toward expanding U.S. capacity to 1.2 million Hyundai, Kia and Genesis models per year across its factories in Georgia and Alabama. In addition to the Savannah plant, the automaker operates a Kia facility in West Point and a Hyundai factory in Montgomery, Alabama.

The centerpiece is a $5 billion steel mill near Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to supply those three factories. The steel mill is to open in 2029 and is another example of Hyundai onshoring its major parts suppliers in the U.S. just as President Donald Trump is levying heavy tariffs on imports, including a 25% tariff on imported steel and aluminum.

Credit: Justin Taylor for The Current GA

Credit: Justin Taylor for The Current GA

Trump recently chastised South Korea for its tariffs on U.S. exports, although the Trump administration and the South Korean government don’t agree on the figures. Trump says South Korea’s tariffs on U.S. goods are four times as much as American tariffs on South Korean imports. South Korea insists the rate is 0.79%, established under a free trade agreement.

Another large-scale Hyundai materials supplier, an EV battery plant, is under construction in Bartow County. Of the 20 parts supplier facilities open or under construction near the metaplant, 19 are based overseas.

“I have never been more optimistic about building the future of mobility in America,” Chung said. “With the leadership of the state and the federal government, the support of Georgia’s business community and the brilliant and proud workers of our meta pros and all the people of Georgia, that future is coming into being.”

Hyundai’s time at the Bryan County site has been marked by tragedy and controversy. Two construction workers have died on the property, the most recent on March 21 at the EV battery factory operated by HL-GA Battery Company, a joint venture of Hyundai and LG Energy Solution, another South Korea-based company.

The other fatality came in April 2023 when a workman, Victor Gamboa, fell from a structure under construction at the site. He was wearing fall protection gear but his safety line sheared on the edge of a steel beam, resulting in him falling 60 feet to his death. The contractor that employed Gamboa, Eastern Constructors Inc., was cited for providing worn, damaged and inadequate safety gear by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which investigated the accident.

Credit: AP

Credit: AP

Other issues plaguing the project involve freshwater and wastewater. The facility is projected to use as much as 4 million gallons of water daily once fully operational, and a plan to pull supply from wells to be built in a neighboring county has met heavy public opposition. The Georgia General Assembly earlier this month passed a budget that includes about $500 million to expand a regional water system that will pull from the Savannah River and supply the Hyundai site, allowing for a reduction in pumping from the controversial wells once the project is completed in 2030.

As for wastewater, Hyundai has been trucking its sewage off-site since September 2024 because it contains high levels of heavy metals. Hyundai has blamed pipes at the site and is replacing the infrastructure but the process won’t be completed until later this year. In the meantime, the company is trucking the wastewater to privately owned treatment facilities outside the Savannah region.

Credit: Justin Taylor for The Current GA

Credit: Justin Taylor for The Current GA