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US President Joe Biden (left) shakes hands with Hyundai Motor Group Chairman Chung Eui-sun (right) following a meeting in Seoul on May 22. (Yonhap News)

Hyundai Motor Group will be investing US$5 billion in the US through 2025 to bolster future-oriented business areas such as robotics and self-driving vehicles. Along with investments for building factories for electric vehicles and batteries announced earlier, the investment the group promised during US President Joe Biden’s visit to South Korea adds up to over US$10.5 billion.

“Hyundai Motor Group plans to invest an additional $5 billion through 2025, which will strengthen our collaboration with American enterprises in diverse technologies, such as robotics, urban air mobility, autonomous driving and artificial intelligence,” the group’s chairman, Chung Eui-sun, said during a press conference outside Biden’s accommodations in Seoul’s Yongsan District on Sunday morning.

Biden, who was standing beside Chung on the podium, thanked Hyundai for choosing the US and said the US would work hard not to disappoint the group. Biden and Chung spoke for over 50 minutes together Sunday.

The additional investment that Hyundai unveiled during the meeting brought the total US investment announced during Biden’s visit to Korea to US$10.5 billion. The day prior, the automaker announced it would invest around US$5.5 billion in building an electric vehicle factory and a battery manufacturing facility in Bryan County, Georgia.

These factories, which are scheduled to begin operations in the first half of 2025, will produce upwards of 300,000 electric vehicles each year. Once the new factories open, Hyundai will have its first plant that assembles solely electric vehicles, with no internal combustion engine vehicles on the line. That will be 20 years after the group opened the Alabama factory in 2005, marking the beginning of its production in the US.

By Ahn Tae-ho, staff reporter

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