Hyundai increasing European production to 500,000 a year

Hyundai is increasing car production in Europe to 500,000 cars a year by upping capacity at its plant in Ízmit, Turkey.

There’s an awful lot of sense in car makers designing and building cars for the markets they serve locally, and it’s a route Hyundai has followed in Europe, where the majority of their sales are of European built models, not imports.

With Hyundai sales still growing despite the European car market meltdown, Hyundai are increasing capacity in Europe to keep up with demand with further investment in their plant in Ízmit, Turkey.

Originally, the Ízmit plant produced just 60,000 cars a year, but in 2007 that was increased to 125,000 and now it is being increased to 200,000 so the new i10 can be built there as well as the latest i20.

Hyundai has invested more than €1 billion in Izmit – Hyundai’s longest-operating plant outside Korea – and the latest expansion has created almost 3,000 new jobs.

Add in the new capacity of the Izmit Plant to that of Hyundai’s other European manufacturing facility in Nošovice, Czech Republic, and Hyundai will be churning out 500,000 cars in Europe by next year, 95% of all the cars they sell in Europe.

Alan Rushforth, Hyundai’s COO in Europe, said:

The expansion of the plant in Turkey and our manufacturing capacity in the region demonstrates Hyundai’s increasing commitment to Europe.  Our European factories will allow us to build the right cars for the region and to continue supporting communities and suppliers throughout Europe.

How much bigger will Hyundai get in Europe? Quite a bit, we expect.