Kia News: Kia $200 Million Expansion of U.S. Assembly Plant

[G. David Felt]

Sean Yoon, president and CEO, Kia North America and Kia America made the following statement: 

“Like Telluride, EV9 has the potential to be another ‘game changer’ for Kia, this will be the most sophisticated vehicle that we have ever built and will be a standout in the EV market and on the road. Best of all, it will be assembled in West Point, Georgia.”

Kia has announced a $200 million expansion of their West Point, Georgia assembly plant allowing production of the 2024 EV9 three-row SUV in the second quarter of 2024. Kia has stated that this will create 200 additional jobs and will be the fifth model assembled at Kia Georgia joining the Telluride, Sorento, Sportage and K5 EV.

Kia first manufacturing site in N.A. will have a annual capacity of 340,000 vehicles for their 2,200 acre campus located in West Point, GA. Kia Georgia began U.S. production on November 16th, 2009 and currently produces the Telluride, Sorento and Sportage models. They also produce the K5 mid-size EV sedan at the Georgia site with the expansion of adding the EV9 and others yet to come for U.S. production.

All Kia models are assembled from locally and globally sourced parts including the EV product line. As required by the IRA act, as production comes online in the U.S. components will be changed from global suppliers to local suppliers.

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[riviera74]

Doesn't Hyundai/KIA use mostly Chinese and/or Korean parts and merely assemble the vehicles here or in S. Korea?  Locally sourced parts may be hard to find.

[G. David Felt]

1 hour ago, riviera74 said:

Doesn't Hyundai/KIA use mostly Chinese and/or Korean parts and merely assemble the vehicles here or in S. Korea?  Locally sourced parts may be hard to find.

Hyundai/Kia/Genesis back in 2018 decided to go almost 100% Chinese for the Chinese market, due to the changes in the US, they started to change sourcing of components to Europe, Wide Asian, not China and the U.S.

Now for the full rebate, their EVs will be assembled here in the U.S. of North American Parts totally.