Kia is launching the construction of a future PBV production hub with an annual capacity of 250,000 vehicles at the PBV-only plant 'Hwaseong EVO Plant (EVO Plant).'
Kia held the completion ceremony for EVO Plant East and the groundbreaking ceremony for EVO Plant West on the 14th in OtoLand (AutoLand) Hwaseong, Ujeong-eup, Hwaseong-si, Gyeonggi-do.
About 200 government and local officials, including Prime Minister Kim Min-seok, Moon Shin-hak, first vice minister of the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, Kim Dong-yeon, governor of Gyeonggi Province, Jeong Myeong-geun, mayor of Hwaseong, and Hyundai Motor Group officials including Chung Eui-sun, chairman of Hyundai Motor Group, Song Ho-sung, president of Kia, Sung Kim, president in charge of strategy at Hyundai Motor Group, and Song Chang-hyun, president and head of the AVP division at Hyundai Motor Group, attended the ceremony.
Kia secured a site of 300,375 square meters (about 98,64 4 pyeong), the size of 42 soccer fields, to build Hwaseong EVO Plant East, EVO Plant West scheduled to start operations in 2027, and a conversion center, and will invest about 4 trillion won in facility investment and R&D expenses. Kia plans to use Hwaseong EVO Plant as a key PBV hub by producing 250,000 PBV units a year and supplying them domestically and abroad.
Prime Minister Kim Min-seok, who attended the event, said in his congratulatory remarks, "I am honored to join the Kia Hwaseong EVO Plant East completion ceremony and the West groundbreaking ceremony," and said, "Together with the automotive industry preparing for other challenges such as electric vehicles, autonomous driving, and AI, we will open a new era of future mobility innovation."
In his welcome address, Song Ho-sung, president of Kia, said, "Kia is taking the electrification transition of the light commercial vehicle (LCV) market as an opportunity to promote PBV as a core future business," and said, "In connection with the government's electric vehicle support policy, among the 4.51 million Kia electric vehicles scheduled to be produced for the global market from 2026 to 2030, 2.63 million, or 58%, will be produced domestically, contributing to strengthening national industrial competitiveness."
▲ 화성 EVO Plant
The name EVO Plant combines 'evolution,' meaning 'evolution,' and 'plant,' meaning 'factory,' expressing the will to pursue evolution and innovation and to become a brand that leads a new mobility environment. It applies numerous future innovative manufacturing technologies, minimizes carbon emissions, and assigns characteristics to each process based on keywords such as automation, eco-friendliness, and worker friendliness.
EVO Plant applies E-FOREST, Hyundai Motor and Kia's smart factory brand that implements human-friendly smart technologies based on automation and informatization manufacturing solutions, and is designed to enable real-time plant operation and quality control.
For the body process, a smart logistics system including automated guided vehicles (AGV) has been introduced.
The painting process was designed to reduce carbon emissions by about 20% compared with existing plants through measures such as operating dry booths that reduce carbon and harmful substances.
The assembly process uses both the conventional conveyor-belt production method and the 'cell' production method that can produce different mobility types simultaneously, enabling diverse and flexible vehicle production; it also introduced worker-friendly on-site features such as smart tags, operation monitors that display specification information to prevent incorrect operations, automation technologies for dangerous processes such as mounting heavy objects, and low-noise equipment applications.
▲ Annual production of 250,000 PBVs and operation of a conversion center
The newly completed Hwaseong EVO Plant East was built on a 99,976-square-meter site (about 30,243 pyeong) and will produce PV5 models, including passenger, cargo, chassis cab and WAV (Wheelchair Accessible Vehicle) models for the mobility-impaired, at a level of about 100,000 units annually.
Hwaseong EVO Plant West, scheduled to start operations in 2027, will be built on a 136,671-square-meter site (about 41,343 pyeong) and is expected to produce about 150,000 units a year of Kia's large-size PBV models, including the PV7.
Kia will also operate a PBV conversion center that develops specialized models with partner companies. The PBV conversion center was built on a 63,728-square-meter site (about 19,278 pyeong) and will manufacture various specialized conversion models such as open-bed, box truck, and camping vehicles using the PV5. Follow-up conversion models using PV7 and others will also be developed and produced.
The conversion center will serve as an outpost for Kia's PBV model business expansion, and through collaboration with partners to improve quality and establish diverse response systems, it is expected to build a PBV ecosystem that strengthens PBV-based industrial competitiveness and promotes shared growth.
A Kia official said, "By establishing a PBV production system and a conversion center, we will create a PBV ecosystem domestically that not only contributes to revitalizing manufacturing but also equips us with the competitiveness to lead the global light commercial vehicle market."
Meanwhile, Kia plans to accelerate achieving RE100 by investing in a 50MW solar renewable energy power generation facility using about 105,000 pyeong of idle national land at AutoLand Hwaseong.
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