Kia puts EVO plant Gwangmyeong into operation

Electromobility Kia puts EVO plant Gwangmyeong into operation

2024-10-01 Source: Press release | Translated by AI 1 min Reading Time

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Kia has officially opened its EVO Gwangmyeong plant, Hyundai Motor Group's first dedicated electric vehicle production facility. The new South Korean plant in Kia's Gwangmyeong car country, with an annual capacity of 150,000 units, has already started production of the Kia EV3, to be followed by the EV4 in the first half of 2025.

Kia has officially opened the EVO plant in Gwangmyeong and will now mass-produce the EV3 electric compact SUV here.(Image: Kia) — Kia has officially opened the EVO plant in Gwangmyeong and will now mass-produce the EV3 electric compact SUV here.
(Image: Kia)

Kia has invested KRW 401.6 billion or around 273.3 million euros (303.48 USD) in the Gwangmyeong EVO plant. EVO is derived from the term Evolution. The production facility with an area of 60,000m² (approx. 646.000 sq ft) is intended to act as a base for Kia's EV production. It was completed in 1987 for the production of small cars with combustion engines such as the Kia Pride, Avella and Stonic. Its conversion now took around a year.

Focus on climate neutrality

Under the motto "Maximum change through minimum expansion", the location in the city center and environmental factors such as the protection of green spaces were taken into account during the conversion. One focus of the conversion was on creating environmentally friendly and employee-friendly processes.

Thanks to the introduction of automatically controlled forklift trucks (AGVs), the body shop has become a high-tech logistics factory. To increase the environmental friendliness of the paint shop, the oil-based 3C2B method was replaced by the water-based 3C1B method. At the same time, new equipment was introduced to improve the well-being of the plant employees and reduce their workload, including machines that can automatically attach high-voltage batteries, wheels and tires to the vehicles.

Electric vehicle production

Following the grand opening of the EVO plant in Gwangmyeong, the company will ramp up electric vehicle production. Series production of the all-electric compact SUV EV3 began in the first half of this year. The EV3 is the brand's third all-electric model after the EV6 crossover launched in 2021 and the EV9 launched in 2023. The launch of the EV4 electric mid-size sedan is scheduled for the first half of 2025. (se)

Using the Kia EV9 as an example, Hyundai and Kia demonstrated three temperature control technologies at the Heat Tech Day that can improve the energy efficiency of an electric vehicle and thus optimize its range. (Image:Kia | Hyundai)

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