Kia Motors to Maintain Transmission Production Volume at Hwaseong Plant Until 2023

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kiho Sung] As the era of electric vehicles approaches and production system transformation becomes a hot topic, Kia Motors has decided to maintain the transmission production volume that it had planned to reduce. Although the labor and management sides intend to continue additional discussions, the trend of expanding production volume is expected to remain unchanged.

According to the automotive industry on the 13th, Kia recently expressed its intention to maintain the transmission production volume until 2023 during the 5th main meeting of the Employment Stability Committee held with the labor union.

Originally, Kia had presented a mid- to long-term future strategy for a bold transition from internal combustion engines to two major future businesses: electric vehicles and mobility solutions, through the Plan S announced in January. Through this, Kia announced that it would have a full lineup of 11 electric vehicle models across all vehicle types by 2025.

Accordingly, the transmission volume supplied from Kia’s Hwaseong plant was planned to gradually decrease from 182,635 units in 2021 to 141,966 units in 2022, and 130,389 units in 2023.

However, as the labor union opposed, citing employment instability in the transmission sector, additional allocations were made. Kia allocated additional volumes of Russian semi-knockdown transmission products, medium-sized electronic transmissions, and small 6-speed automatic transmissions to the union, deciding to maintain a total transmission production volume of 220,000 units until 2023. Kia’s labor and management are expected to engage in further negotiations regarding this proposal.

The labor union has felt employment insecurity regarding the Plan S proposed by the management. This is due to concerns that production volume within the plant will continue to decrease because electric vehicles do not include powertrains (PT) such as engines and transmissions.

Meanwhile, to finalize the wage and collective bargaining agreement (wage and labor agreement) negotiation demands, Kia’s labor union extended the temporary delegates’ meeting originally scheduled for the 13th to the 16th due to the impact of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). On the 3rd, Kia’s labor union had finalized the executive demands through a wage and labor agreement discussion meeting with the executive officers.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.