Hyundai’s new EV factory is teeming with robots — and wariness about the future

Leadership a 2026 Ioniq 9 suv About the Hyundai Metaplant collection in Georgia, you can feel like a car manufacturer in South Korea. Hyundai, the leading Hyundai, is launched in a room for three rows of seats that focus on America, from the prosperous brand that EVS and Hybrids are one out of every four American sales.

And better, Ioniq 9 and The smallest Ioniq 5 It emerges from a future new factory in America, giving Hyundai a sad that can be defended against the definitions and enthusiasm starting from the Donald Trump administration. While I see these electric all -wheel drive vehicles rolling a surgical clean collection line, the opportunistic timing of the opportunistic Hyundai waves on the horizon like the huge robots that help build their cars.

A 7.6 billion -dollar factory tour also confirms the number of car manufacturers applying in long luminous EV plans, regardless of Category 5 Washington winds This threatens to detonate the support of Joe Biden’s era to manufacture EV, consumer tax credits, and public shipping.

Viewed from the air on his way to Savanna, Metaplant is similar to the printed circuit board Against green background, in an epic scale. Eleven low buildings of pale green color of 3000 acres from Georgia’s countryside, with a total area of ​​7.5 million square feet. A builder includes a 4 billion dollar battery factory, a joint operation with a LG Energy solution in South Korea, plans to start providing cells for Ioniq models next year. The company is racing to open a second battery factory in Georgia, which is a joint operation of about $ 5 billion with SK On. The next steel factory in Louisiana confirms Hyundai’s commitment to its largest global market. Everything is part of a 21 billion dollars investment In America from now and 2028, the vast majority pledged during the IV friend Biden administration.

When dragging to the factory, I see a carrier carrying newly painted cars across a window bridge. It is designed to allow drivers on the 16th highway by watching the factory fruits that eventually produce 500,000 EVS and hybrid per year-more than Tesla Texas GigaFactory, with a capacity of 375,000 cars. Georgians may also see the dollars of taxes at work. The factory is generally used in 1340 “Metapros”, which is enough to enhance the annual domestic salaries of the auto industry to $ 497 million. Hyundai expects 8500 jobs on the site, and 7,000 other jobs for suppliers and local companies.

This is a lot of jobs. Compared to the Detroit region factory, where I was returned in the 1980s, which is a frustrating milestom of heat, dirt, toxic chemicals, and industrial accidents, like this joint MOMA: a modern museum of manufacturing art.

But the factory also highlights hunting 22 of modern manufacturing. Trump’s economic advisers seem to ignore, on intentionally or otherwise: you have any opportunity to compete with the tyrant in China, and factories must be recruited in the increasing armies of improved robots that can work around the clock throughout the week and do not require excessive time or benefits. This means employing relatively fewer people.

On the loading of the factory, Independent guided vehiclesOr AGVS, emptying occupied parts of semi -semi -semi Nearly 300 of these automatic skis roaming in the factory without any required paths, and avoiding workers or obstacles accurately. Artificial intelligence informs the entire factory process, from purchases to logistical services to production.

This AGVS is common in today’s factories, but I never saw it on this range, or a specific maneuver in the signs team: a pair of skis under Hyundais ended while recycling the line. They press the wheels of cars in automatic weapons, lift them from the ground, and the cans of cars where they need to go. I have visited car factories around the world, and this is the first that I saw as the employee does not have to start and push cars away.

Mechanical compounds also carry each component to the assembly line for the effective “timely” installation of “time”, and there is no required human. This avoids wasting funds and storing accumulated accumulated workers from the parts.

“They offer the right parts to the right station in a timely manner, so they no longer rely on people to make decisions” or losing time for errors, “says Jerry Roche, Director of the General Assembly.

The best friend of a man appears. A pair of automatic dogs called “spot”, born before The Massachusetts -based Boston DynamicsWipe and dismantle potential defects on cars. You may soon join the yellow dogs with human robots, which AI drives “Atlas” models Hyundai plans to publish all its factories in the future. the Robots – That exceeds its ability to the wheel, Breakdance, and Barrel Roll, most auto workers – seem friendly, but will strike any person with a potential aspect of jobs. (Hyundai executive officials insist that this is not the case.)

The welding store alone includes 475 industrial robots, as it collected construction blocks in the car structure. The steel sealing factory is so calm that it does not need to protect the ear, even when robots are fighting surfaces, fenders and other body panels in a complex dance. As with many leading factories, there are a few amazing workers outside the collection line itself; I have only discovered a few dozen work in the Cafe Lahham Hall.

The familiar industrial robots – but not after the human Atlas robots – until the doors of huge cars are installed on the assembly line. Roth says that the job is very difficult for workers without managing them without damaging painted surfaces. “Cooperative” robots should be safe and reliable enough to work alongside humans without a required physical separation.

“This is a real factory in the future,” says Roche.

Roche says that these types of functions, which involve heavy lifting, and repeated tasks, or speed and computerized accuracy are “main things” for automation. Other functions require the accuracy of only hands and human vision.

“I want my people to program,” says Roche. “I want to pay people well for the things they do well, take all boring and boring things, and the jobs that people don’t want to do.”

Of course, some people may not mind arduous or heavy functions that also pay a generous living wage. But there is no return to the days that took thousands of workers to keep the plant’s tinnitus; The Ford River Rouge Complex, which was designed by Albert was more than 100,000 workers during World War II.

The car industry in the twenty -first century also means the latest in green technology. Metapant aims to obtain 100 percent of its energy from renewable sources. Trucks that transport parts here are operated daily from the supply chain translated by hydrogen fuel cells and produce zero rear emissions. The 21-Truck fleet was built by the Mamluk Hyundai XCIENTThe first half of the fuel cells in the world.

Employees can stand in approximately 1900 places under the solar surfaces, protected from Georgia Sun bread, which provides up to five percent of the electricity in the factory. The largest part of the railway cars is shipped instead of the truck, which reduces the carbon fingerprint in the factory.

Credit

Hyundai hopes that these trains will charge the additional in 2026 Ioniq 9. buyers will find wide chips and affordable to R1S R1S or Tesla Model X, with a 50 percent more space behind the third row of Tesla. Migraine Kia Ev9 Removiced It is the most expensive Hyundai to date, starting from $ 60,595 for a unilateral model with a modest power of 215 hp. Advanced SUVs completely get a fully battery, which is a 110 -kilowatt battery, which provides 335 miles of driving range, or 311 to 320 miles still silent for AWD versions. It is stuffed with useful technology, including a pair of 12.3-inch-related screens, USB-C 100W connectors, and abolishing active noise.

Ioniq 9 horizons may focus on a particularly convincing piece: Tesla Nacs opens on Tesla Nacs, the wide world of Tesla Supercharge for buyers. (Ioni 5, which started producing Georgia in October, It was the first other than Tesla with the original NACS plug). Like the other EVS with the advanced structure of 800 volts or more, Ioniq 9 does not receive peak rates on the super charger. But Hyundai is still citing a re -filling from 10 to 80 percent in 40 minutes. This decreases to 24 minutes on the most powerful CCS shipments of 350 kW of America from Electrify. Ioniq 9s will come with free transformers to connect CCS stations, opening access to a total of 45,000 booths in America.

Hyundai was also hoping to attract Ioniq buyers for consumers worth $ 7,500, including by switching Ioniq 5 from South Korea to Georgia. For Ioniq 9, which I tested-the AWD upper rack, $ 75,000 with 422 hp of a pair of electric motors-this credit will represent 10 percent of the price. But now the Trump administration is operating the electric cars, the majority built in the countries led by Republicans, in an unprecedented and malicious way. It kneels these credits, Preventing public funds for WahhnSugfling EVS and hybrid with annual road maintenance fees.

Hyundai also took its blocks under Biden’s managementThe Irish Republican Army has prepared imported EVS for tax credits, although Hyundai pledge billions of dollars in the United States. Jose Montes, the global president of Hyundai, explained that the company felt blind and unfairly marginalized.

Metapant was one answer, allowing Hyundai to convert Ioniq 5 production from South Korea. This enhances the percentage of the model of the American and Canadian parts of the bodeling by 2 percent to 63 percent, including batteries obtained from the United States. For Ioniq 9, North America’s share is 60 percent. Finally, Hyundai can describe both the American -made Ioniq models as completely qualified to obtain tax credits for consumers worth $ 7,500, as executive managers did during the factory tour.

But in a bitter paradox, Hyundai across the ocean and mountain transportation to start the US production from Hyundai, Kia and Genesis Evs are about to get out of the credits. once again.

There are lessons there, somewhere. For customs tariff supporters, Metapant may be a $ 7.6 billion lesson in reality: no American factory can spoil one car without a share of imported parts, including from China that holds near raw or manufactured battery materials.

For automotive companies, including Hyundai’s competitors (definitely envious) now under pressure on their own factories beach, lessons are different. They must deal with the constantly changing management of Trump’s management, in a company that lives for long -term clarity, organizational consistency, and economic stability.

For every EV maker, including the Hyundai engine that seems to have done everything through the book, it seems that the conclusion is inevitable: it is alone. We do not expect any help from Washington, but possible harm. The only possible strategy is to emerge from their arms, keep their heads down, and avoid more kicks to the teeth.