Hyundai celebrates 25 years of Make in India

Today marks the 25^th anniversary of Hyundai Motor India’s operations in India. The company, now in its silver jubilee year, is the No. 2 passenger vehicle player with 17.74% market share and 21% share of the utility vehicle market.

On May 6, 1996, Hyundai Motor India officials laid the foundation of the company’s manufacturing facility at Irungattukkottai in Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu. Over the past two-and-a-half decades, this facility has emerged as a hub of manufacturing excellence.

Operations for the manufacturing facility began on September 1998 with the commissioning of Hyundai’s first integrated car manufacturing plant outside Korea. Today, with two plants, the Korean carmaker has a combined manufacturing capacity of around 750,000 units per annum. The Sriperumbudur plant has, till now, produced over 9 million cars.

Key highlights of the plants are:
- Zero wastage 100 % water recirculation facility using recirculated water and rainwater harvesting systems
- 85 % energy utilization from renewable sources to be achieved in 2021
- 33 % of the physical expanse of the factory is under green cover
- Nearly 14% of the cars manufactured are dispatched by eco-friendly railway route
- Smart factory houses over 650 fourth-gen robots.
- Utilisation of AI in robotics automation for car manufacturing
- Max output in a single month: 71 000 in December 2020

From the rollout of its iconic Santro through to premium cars like the i20 and more recent products like the Verna, Venue, new Creta, Grand i10 Nios and the Aura, Hyundai is now a household name in India.

According to S S Kim, MD and CEO, Hyundai Motor India,  “Envisioning India at the heart of global manufacturing and commerce, Hyundai began its journey with the country 25 years ago towards a mutual progress. Today, it gives us immense pride to have come this far together, developing a sustainable and thriving ecosystem leading to collective evolution of the Indian Automotive Industry."

"Under the aegis of our global vision ‘Progress for Humanity’, Hyundai Motor India will continue to drive excitement across the market through innovation in products and services. As a part of our commitment to the nation, we will continue our efforts towards the betterment of society and communities ensuring the fruition of a brighter and greener future for the generation to come," he added.

Made-in-India export leader
Hyundai Motor India, which wrested the No. 1 made-in-India passenger vehicle (PV) exporter title from Ford India in FY2020, is set to retain the title in FY2021. In FY2019, the Korean carmaker missed being India's top PV exporter in FY2019 by a whisker – of all 696 units! 

Now, after nine months of FY2021, Hyundai with 74,021 units (-49%), is firmly in the export leader’s seater, considerably ahead of No. 2 player Maruti Suzuki India which shipped a total of 59,821 units (-21%) and Ford India’s 39,775 units (-62%).

In early 2020, Hyundai Motor India surpassed the 3-million passenger vehicle export milestone,

Export milestones
2008: 500,000 units
2010: 10,00,000 units
2014: 20,00,000 units
2020: 30,00,000 units