Hyundai Motor expects to lose an estimated 30,000 units of production following a fire at its first Beijing Hyundai assembly plant. No one was injured but it is likely to take at least a month to get the plant operational again.
The fire, which took two hours to bring under control, spread quickly because of the amount of flammable material in the plant, according to local media reports.
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The factory, in the Linhe Industrial Development Zone in Shunyi District, was producing 1,300 units a day for China; models assembled there include Accent and Sonata.
Restarting the paint shop is expected to take the longest but Hyundai told local reporters that it might accelerate the opening of the paint shop at its third Beijing plant to compensate, althought this plant is 20km (12 miles) from the fire-damaged factory. The 400,000-capacity plant had been been scheduled to come on stream in July and would take Hyundai’s China capacity to over 1m units a year.
The Beijing plants are Hyundai’s largest overseas production bases. The first and second plants produced 740,000 vehicles last year.
