Hyundai Motor Company acquires General Motors ( GM )’s plant in Talegaon, India. By adding the Talegaon plant (130,000 units) to the existing Chennai plant (820,000 units per year), India has a production system of 1 million units per year. It is a strategy to solidify its top-tier position in India, the world’s third-largest automobile market, by expanding production capacity. Hyundai Motor Company announced
on the 16th that it had signed a main contract with GM India to acquire the Talegaon plant at its local subsidiary in Haryana, India. As part of global restructuring, it took over the local plant of GM , which is withdrawing from India. The company expects to receive approval from the Indian government within the year. The amount of the acquisition was not disclosed to each other, but the industry estimates it at hundreds of billions of won.
Hyundai Motor’s acquisition of the Talegaon plant is to secure leadership in the rapidly growing Indian market. India sold 4.76 million units last year, making it the world’s third largest automobile market after China (23.2 million units) and the United States (14.2 million units). The passenger car market is expected to exceed 5 million units by 2030, with a scale of 3.8 million units. The Indian government has also set a goal of increasing the share of electric vehicles to 30% by 2030.
Hyundai Motor Company sold 346,711 units in India as of last July, maintaining its second place in market share (14.6%) following Japan’s Maruti Suzuki (41.7%). Kia is fifth with 156,110 units (6.6% share). In 2025, the Talegaon plant is in full operation and Kia plans to take the lead by expanding its local plant. This is why on the 8th, Chung Eui-sun, chairman of Hyundai Motor Group, visited India for the first time after taking office as chairman in 2020 to check production and sales strategies.
It will also start producing electric vehicles locally. Electric vehicle sales in India last year were only about 48,000 units, but are expected to reach 1 million by 2030. Hyundai Motor Company is planning to use the existing Chennai plant’s spare capacity following the acquisition of the Talegaon plant as a new electric vehicle production line.
Hyundai Motor’s ‘Operation to Attack India’… India , which Tesla
and BYD are eyeing… Acquisition of GM plant by avoiding Chinese companies
Exeter, a compact sport utility vehicle ( SUV ) launched by Hyundai Motor Company in India last month, received contracts for more than 50,000 units in less than a month after its launch. It is approaching the monthly sales volume of Hyundai Motor Company. Vehicles can also wait an average of one year to receive them.
Hyundai Motor’s popularity in the Indian market is such that production cannot keep up with demand. In the first half of this year, the utilization rate of Hyundai Motor’s Indian plant exceeded 102%. It is producing more cars than its production capacity, but it is still not enough. Tarun Gag, chief operating officer ( COO ) of Hyundai Motor India, said토토사이트, “Even though most of the COVID-19 and semiconductor supply shortages are over, the waiting period for popular models of Hyundai Motor Company reaches up to 10 months.” This is the background of Hyundai Motor Company’s decision to take over the Talegaon plant of General Motors ( GM ) India, located in Maharashtra, India on the 16th . This is the first time that Hyundai has acquired a foreign company’s factory in India since entering India in 1998.
○ Number of wins in India, a global car battleground
India is currently the market that global automakers are most interested in. India, the world’s largest country with a large population, is one of the world’s three largest automobile markets, with 4.76 million new cars sold last year. The growth potential is greater. Compared to the population of 1.4 billion people, the car penetration rate is only 8.5% of all households (Euromonitor).
Moon Yong-kwon, a researcher at Shinyoung Securities, said, “The size of the passenger car market in India is still one-fifth that of China.”
The Indian government’s strong automobile industry promotion policies, such as tax cuts and subsidies, are also attracting global companies. The Indian government has also set a goal of increasing the share of electric vehicles to 30% of total sales by 2030. Accordingly, global electric vehicle companies such as Tesla and BYD are scrambling to consider investing in India.
Hyundai Motor Company, which already had a production base in India, occupied an advantageous position by taking over the Talegaon plant this time. The Talegaon plant was also a place that China’s Changcheng Motors had its eyes on, but the Indian government sided with Hyundai Motors. The Indian government, which is in a delicate tension with China, recently rejected a plan to build a $1 billion electric vehicle plant proposed by China’s BYD . An industry insider said, “The Indian market has a high import tariff rate of 70-100%, so it is difficult to sell without a local factory . ”
○Jeui Eui-sun “To India’s Electric Vehicle ‘First Mover’”Hyundai Motor Company increased its annual production capacity from 750,000 units to 820,000 units by improving its Chennai plant line this year. Considering the addition of the Talegaon plant with an annual capacity of 130,000 units and additional expansion plans in the future, Hyundai Motor’s total production capacity in India will increase to 1 million units.
The freed up factory line will be converted to production of fast-growing electric vehicles. According to market research firm Canalys, sales of electric vehicles in India are expected to soar from 50,000 last year to 1 million by 2030. Hyundai Motor Company has decided to build a new electric vehicle production line at its Chennai plant and introduce five electric vehicles, including Creta EV and Ioniq 5 , to the Indian market by 2032 . It will also build new production facilities that can assemble 178,000 electric vehicle battery packs annually. To this end, it also plans to invest 200 billion rupees (approximately 3.2 trillion won) in India over the next 10 years.
The Hyundai Motor Group’s ‘Operation to Attack India’ is led directly by Chairman Chung Eui-sun. Through this, the strategy is to use the rapidly growing Indian market as an alternative to China. Chairman Chung visited India for the first time since his inauguration as chairman earlier this month. It is said that he asked to quickly establish a ‘first mover’ position in the Indian electric vehicle market.
The Hyundai Motor India plant is expected to be used not only locally but also as an export base. Tea produced in the Indian plant is exported to Mexico, West Asia, and Latin America. Hyundai Motor Company India plans to export and sell vehicles such as Verna and Nios, which are well received in India, to these markets.