SINGAPORE: Hyundai Motor Co. kicked off final assembly of its Ioniq 6 electric sedan in Singapore on Friday, reaffirming a commitment to the factory that could one day churn out as many as 30,000 cars a year.
The South Korean automaker began local assembly of the Ioniq 5 sport utility vehicle, which shares the same platform as the Ioniq 6, in May last year.
That model imports a body shell from Indonesia and uses other parts shipped from South Korea, while the Ioniq 6’s body shell is also imported from Hyundai’s home base.
The automaker has made a S$400 million (RM1.4bil) investment into the facility in Jurong, called the Hyundai Motor Group Innovation Center Singapore.
The plant also reflects Singapore’s ambition to bolster its manufacturing sector by using robotics and new production methods.
Singapore aims to have all vehicles run on cleaner energy by 2040.
Technology from the Singapore centre, which boasts 179 robots, has already been implemented in Hyundai factories in the US and Korea.
While Hyundai declined to share any cost savings that it gets from local assembly, it says the Singapore facility allows it to react quicker to domestic market trends and demand.
Some 1,094 Hyundai EVs were registered in the city-state from May 2023 to May this year, Land Transport Authority data show.
The Ioniq 5 starts at S$186,800 (RM651,000). An imported version of the Ioniq 6 that’s not available currently used to cost around S$262,000 (RM913,000).
Vehicle prices in Singapore include a so-called certificate of entitlement (COE), which is a permit to own and use a vehicle. They currently range from S$91,889 to S$100,000 (RM349,000) depending on a vehicle’s power.
The locally assembled Ioniq 6 will come in four trims and has a long-range, two-wheel drive version that can run for 614km on a single charge. It will start from S$192,150 (RM670,000) including COE.
