HMMI: The factory that makes your Hyundai Creta and Stargazer

Hyundai Motor Philippines recently celebrated its first year of operations in the Philippines. To mark the occasion, they held activities to express gratitude to customers who supported their brand and vehicles. To further show their commitment to the local market, they took a select group of media members to visit their state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Indonesia where they source the Creta and Stargazer sold in the Philippines.

Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Indonesia is Hyundai’s first manufacturing plant in Southeast Asia. Located in Bekasi, West Java, Indonesia, the plant was inaugurated in March 2022.

Unlike other automakers who chose Thailand, Hyundai Motor Company (HMC) decided to establish their ASEAN base in Indonesia which bore fruit to this 18-hectare assembly facility on a massive 77.6-hectare property. Investing about $1.55 billion, the manufacturing plant currently rolls out 150,000 vehicles with a maximum capacity of 250,000, which HMC plans to scale to in the near future.

HMMI's state-of-the-art facility builds cars starting from metal sheets sourced from Hyundai Group's own steel plants and pressed into panels with machinery by Hyundai Rotem, with robots by Hyundai Robotics, engines built in-house, parts supplied by Hyundai Mobis, and logistics provided by Hyundai Glovis. This circular ecosystem shows us the scale and prowess of Hyundai, not just an automotive but also an industrial and engineering company.

HMMI representatives shared that the plant, despite being dedicated to assembling cars, is unique in the sense that it is very "human-centric"; in line with HMC's "Progress for Humanity" vision. They say that emotional and mental well-being plays a huge importance along with workplace safety and manufacturing quality in the facility. The assembly line is air-conditioned and we even saw workers using Hyundai's Vest Exoskeleton (VEX) and Chairless Exoskeleton (CEX) innovations introduced in 2019 to help them work more comfortably.

Commitment to electrification

With the Indonesian government spearheading the expansion of the country’s EV ecosystem, which includes converting 130,000 government vehicles to EVs by 2030, HMC chose their first plant in Southeast Asia to assemble the Ioniq 5 battery electric vehicle (BEV) in addition to strategic models for the region.

Aside from their commitment to building electric cars, HMC partnered with LG Energy Solutions for a battery cell factory in Karawang, West Java which is set to produce sustainable EV batteries by 2024. The locally produced batteries aim to reduce the cost of Hyundai’s EV offerings to make them more accessible to the market.

Our visit gave us a better insight into the brand's commitment to making Hyundai vehicles in a more sustainable way not just for the environment, but the people behind them. HMMI will be producing the new Hyundai Stargazer X slated to arrive in the Philippines by Q4 of 2023.