This photo taken on April 8, 2020, shows vehicles lined up at Hyundai Motor’s port in Ulsan, about 410 kilometers southeast of Seoul. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, June 15 (Korea Bizwire) — Hyundai Motor Co. on Monday suspended production lines for its flagship sport utility vehicle model Palisade and the GV80 under its independent Genesis brand due to parts supply problems.
Hyundai already suspended two assembly lines at the No. 2 plant in Ulsan, 414 kilometers southeast of Seoul, and one line at the No. 4 Ulsan plant on Friday after a worker of its subcontractor died on Thursday, a company spokesman said.
The country’s largest automaker has been supplied parts on a daily basis by the parts supplier.
“It remains to be seen whether the suspension at the No. 2 and No. 4 Ulsan plants will continue tomorrow or this week due to the labor ministry’s investigation into the scene of the accident,” he said.
Hyundai rolls out the Palisade SUV from the two plants and the GV80 SUV from the No. 2 plant. The subcontractor in Ulsan has provided crash pads, a core component used in the cockpit module of the two SUV models.
In recent weeks, the maker of the Sonata sedan and the Santa Fe SUV had suspended some of its assembly lines in the main Ulsan plants to control inventories amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Hyundai has seven domestic plants — five in Ulsan, one in Asan and one in Jeonju — and 10 overseas plants — four in China and one each in the United States, the Czech Republic, Turkey, Russia, India and Brazil.
Their combined capacity reaches 5.5 million vehicles.
Hyundai suspended most of its overseas plants from March amid virus fears. All of its overseas plants returned to operations early this month, though not in full production.
From January to May, Hyundai’s sales fell 26 percent to 1,288,629 vehicles from 1,748,911 units a year earlier.
(Yonhap)
