Hyundai Motor already has severe capacity constraints at its Alabama plant and is preparing to announce plans to add US production capacity, its top local executive said.
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Hyundai, which has increased its US market share in recent years, could announce plans for more U.S. production within four weeks, Hyundai Motor America president and chief executive John Krafcik was quoted as saying.
“We don’t want too much capacity,” Krafcik said at the Center for Automotive Research conference. “We are looking at everything from modest increases in capacity at our existing plants and various other options.”
The automaker posted a 24% sales increase in 2010 to the end of July and is on track to break 500,000 vehicles in annual US sales for the first time. It builds the Sonata mid-sized sedan and Santa Fe SUV at an Alabama plant that is running at maximum overtime.
To the end of July, Hyundai reported US sales of about 310,000 vehicles, more than a third were Sonatas.
“We need more capacity to meet consumer demand so at this point nothing is off the table.”
Hyundai’s US production would need to increase just to meet the automaker’s sales expectations over the next few years if it holds or slightly increases its roughly 5% market share each year and industry sales increase, Krafcik said.
Its US market share was 4.6% in the first half of 2010, up 0.3 percentage points from a year earlier, according to Autodata.
“The next four weeks I think we will have something to talk about,” Krafcik said.
