Kia and its parent company together marked a benchmark of 3.28 Million car production, since post-COVID-19. Yonhap news agency reports that Hyundai Motor and Kia, the top automakers in South Korea, produced 3,678,831 completed vehicles at 13 overseas production bases last year, based on data from the Korea Automobile Manufacturers Association.
Based on the i10 small car, Hyundai introduced its first electric vehicle (EV) model, the BlueOn, to the domestic market in July 2011. Additionally, Hyundai and Kia sold 516,441 electric vehicles in 2023, bringing their total EV sales to 1.53 million units at the end of the previous year.
Last year, eight out of ten EVs made by Hyundai and Kia were sold abroad. Kia's Niro and EV6, Hyundai's Kona Electric, and IONIQ 5 are among the best-selling models.
Hyundai intends to introduce the electric Casper minicar later this year, while Kia will begin producing the EV3 compact EV model at its domestic plant in the second quarter, despite a decline in EV sales.
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What are the different numbers of different countries?
Kia produced 1,435,762 vehicles in the United States, China, Slovakia, Mexico, and India, while Hyundai produced 2,243,069 vehicles in eight countries: the United States, India, China, Turkey, Czech Republic, Brazil, Indonesia, and Singapore.The total output of the previous year increased by 2.9% over 2022. Additionally, it was their highest total since 2019—before the pandemic—in four years. India produced 1.08 million cars per country, followed by the United States, Slovakia, and China, with 727,000, 394,249, and 352,240 vehicles produced, respectively.
China's steady decline in production stood out within the overall production growth trajectory. In 2016, the collective production of the Chinese companies was 1.83 million units. Another notable thing about Russia was that, despite having a production facility there, Hyundai did not make a single car there in the previous year. From 2012 to 2022, Hyundai produced more than 200,000 units a year in Russia. However, following the start of the Ukrainian War, production abruptly stopped in 2022, falling to about 40,000 units. The company established the Hyundai Motor Group Innovation Centre Singapore in Singapore last year and produced 595 cars there for the first time.
What’s their next target for 2024?
Hyundai plans to sell 4.24 million cars in 2024, a marginal increase over the 4.21 million sold in the previous year, while Kia plans to sell 3.2 million, a 3.6% increase over the 3.08 million sold the year before. After Volkswagen Group and Toyota Motor Corp., the two together make up the third-largest automaker in the world based on sales.
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