Kia is beginning to understand that with the absence of a manufacturing facility in Southeast Asia, they stand to lag behind their sister brand, Hyundai. In order to catch up, they’re now considering to build their first-ever plant in the region.
Sources tell South Korea’s Pulse by Maeil Business News Korea that the automaker is considering to build a manufacturing facility in Thailand with an annual capacity of about 250,000 units. The move is seen as Kia’s effort to aggressively expand its presence in Southeast Asia following its success story in India.
Multiple sources from the auto industry say Kia is discussing with the Thailand government and that they’re close to signing an investment deal later this year. If it pushes through, construction is expected to begin in the first half of 2024.
With the Thai government investing heavily in promoting Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs), it’s likely that Kia will assemble vehicles such as the EV6 in the region. However, they could very well produce products such as the Kia Carens (lead photo).
Kia currently has manufacturing bases not just in Korea, but in the United States, China, India, Slovakia, and Mexico as well.
Currently, the Hyundai Motor Group operates a plant in Indonesia. The plant, which produces the Creta and Stargazer also has an annual capacity of 250,000 units.
philippines ??/
ReplyDeleteProbably not in our lifetimeššš
DeletePang KTM lang ang Ayala.
DeleteMotorcycles are easier and cheaper to manufacture and there's a huge demand for it worldwide
DeleteManufacting Kia Carens,Kia Rio and Kia Sonet here and only selling 2 thousand units a year isn't really worth spending hundred million dollars for a local car assembly plant.
The Hyundai Motor Group even have factories in Vietnam for example, as HMG there is currently the leading marque (in Vietnam) ahead of Ford (thanks to the Ranger) and Mitsubishi, Kia's earliest presence in the Philippines had the marque sold the Pride (aka Ford Festiva and Mazda 121) and the Ceres (a rebadged and reengineered Mazda Bongo van) as Kia in the Philippine market that time was distributed by Columbian Autocar Corporation (CAC) — which also took responsibility of distributing Hyundai, Subaru and Mazda products in the Philippines in the past.
ReplyDeleteAs a result of that, Kia assembled its cars in Philippine territory (in ParaƱaque?) alongside Mazda hence the reason why engineering pieces of older 1980s-1990s Mazda (also Mazda-Ford) cars could be applied into Kia's cars being sold during the same period, for example the first-generation Kia Carnival (aka Kia Sedona in North America and the United Kingdom/Ireland) was derived from the running gear of the 1990s-2000s model years Mazda 626 just as their mechanical parts are were also used in the first-generation models of the Ford Escape (aka Ford Maverick) and Mazda Tribute... (Hence the latter two SUVs were develop from the same platform because the blueprints of the 626 by Mazda was also used in the Ford Telstar and the Ford Probe sports car...)