Hyundai inaugurates engine plant in Piracicaba

By Redação AutoIndústria | Translated by Jorge Meditsch

With a R$ 500 million investment and a little more than one year in construction, Hyundai has formally inaugurated in Piracicaba, SP, its first engine plant in Latin America. The unit has a constructed area of 17.7 thousand square meters, employs 256 workers and has an initial production capacity of 70 thousand engines per year.

Located at the same site as the vehicle plant, which this month completes its first decade, it is the South-Korean manufacturer’s 13th plant worldwide and adopts the 4.0 Industry’s concepts and technology. It is now producing only 1.0-liter aspirated engines – the turbocharged, which equip more expensive versions of the national vehicles, will still be imported from South Korea.

Since September 2012, Hyundai made more than 1.7 million units of the HB20 hatch and sedan and the Creta SUV. The plant in Piracicaba can produce up to 210 thousand vehicles a year operating three-shift, a regimen already adopted in its first year of operation.

Ken Ramirez, Hyundai Motor’s president and CEO for Brazil and Central and South America, took part in the new unit opening ceremony with authorities and other manufacturer’s executives and emphasized the versatility of the project: “The engine plant has a high level of automation in its processes, providing the necessary flexibility to adapt the production lines agilely”.

The plant in Piracicaba is Hyundai’s first in the world to adopt autonomous robots to move parts between the manufacturing processes. According to the manufacturer, the equipment reduces by 50% the space needed for parts in the production line and provides more flexibility to change the production for other vehicles.

Currently, Hyundai is the 5th brand in sales in Brazil. From January through August, it sold 122.5 thousand automobiles and light commercial vehicles and disputes the fourth position with Toyota one-on-one. With 61.9 thousand units sold, the HB20 is the country’s best-selling passenger car.

Photograph: Hyundai