South Korean auto maker Kia plans to roll out electric and hybrid vehicles from its upcoming plant at Anantpur in Andhra Pradesh and is targeting to launch an electric vehicle in India by 2021, said a top company official to PTI.
Kia Motors India, the wholly-owned arm of Kia Motors Corporation, has lined also up three models to be launched here in the next three years as part of its plans to enter the market.
“At the moment we are considering producing electric vehicles and hybrids at our facility (at Anantpur),” Kia Motors India CEO and Managing Director Kook Hyun Shim told PTI in an interview. The company is investing USD 1.1 billion at the plant spread over 23 million square feet. It will have a capacity to produce 3 lakh cars annually and employ around 3,000 when fully operational.
When PTI asked about the company’s plans for electric vehicles (EVs) for India in the backdrop of the government taking a technology agnostic approach and avoiding framing an EV policy, he said the company’s approach is “very flexible”.
Globally, the company has announced that it planned to have 16 electrified vehicles in its line up by 2025, including plug in hybrids and fuel cell vehicles (FCV). The current issues facing EVs, such as charging infrastructure and battery life-cycle management, would have been addressed to an extent by 2021, Shim said.
Ruling out possibilities of sharing its production plant with Hyundai, Shim said, “We see a lot of demand for our Kia vehicle in India. Also, we plan to do assembly of completely knocked down (CKS) units. So, we don’t see the possibility of sharing our plant with Hyundai.”
On the recruitment of people for its manufacturing operations, Shim said Kia will start its planned hiring of 3,000 people from October this year and will complete the process by end of 2020 by when it expects to have three shifts of operation at the plant.
