Hyundai Motor is considering expanding production capacity at its Georgia assembly plant from 500,000 vehicles annually to between 700,000 and 800,000 units by 2028, CEO José Muñoz told CNBC on Thursday. The South Korean automaker said following publication of the interview that the plans are under consideration but not yet confirmed.
At the upper end of that range, the Georgia Metaplant would leapfrog rivals — among them Tesla and Toyota Motor — to claim the top spot among U.S. vehicle assembly plants measured by capacity.
Muñoz said President Donald Trump’s tariffs, including a 15% levy on imports from South Korea, have accelerated the company’s localization plans. “Tariffs are helping accelerate our localization plan. That’s very, very simple,” he said. “The good thing is that we had already started before tariffs were announced. So in a way it’s helping us to accelerate.”
Any such expansion would be funded through Hyundai’s already-announced $26 billion U.S. investment commitment running to 2028. Hyundai has targeted a domestic production share of at least 80% of the vehicles it moves in the U.S. market by 2030, compared with roughly 40% in 2024. “For that purpose, we need to add more capacity,” Muñoz said.
The $7.6 billion Metaplant, which Hyundai first announced in 2022, is currently turning out the all-electric Ioniq 5 and Ioniq 9 models alongside the Kia Sportage hybrid. The facility is designed to build hybrid and all-electric vehicles for the Hyundai, Genesis, and Kia brands. Under the existing 500,000-unit framework, the Georgia campus would employ upward of 8,500 people directly, with a further 6,900 positions supported at supplier facilities nearby.
Hyundai is also evaluating additional investment for body-on-frame vehicles such as trucks and SUVs at a location separate from the Georgia plant, though Muñoz declined to provide further details.
Muñoz, who became the first non-Korean CEO of Hyundai Motor when he took the role last year, framed the U.S. as central to the company’s global strategy. “For us, the USA is the most important market in the world besides Korea, which is our headquarters,” he said. Hyundai’s U.S. market share has grown from 8.4% in 2020 to 11.2% last year, according to CNBC, citing data from Mobility Global.