According to Automotive News, the expansion will set the company back some $173 million and could be ready as early as March 2012, requiring Hyundai to hire an additional 214 employees.
The expansion would also boost production capacity for the company's Theta engine for the Hyundai Santa Fe and the Kia Sorrento models manufactured at the Kia Motors Corp’s assembly plant at West Point.
"The enhancements to the engine plant will not only increase our engine capacity by 300,000 units per year, it will also provide us the opportunity to implement new manufacturing technologies," Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Alabama LLC CEO Deuk Lim said during a news conference today.
Hyundai Motor's CFO Lee Won-hee said last month that the company could consider building another US production plant if the market continued go in the same direction, but that no formal plans are in place at the moment. Hyundai's US sales rose 31 percent in the first four months of 2011, boosted by a model lineup filled with fuel-efficient small cars, as American buyers seek vehicles that can help overcome gasoline prices that have risen above $4 per gallon in much of the country.
The CEO of the US division, John Krafcik, earlier this year said the automaker's sales will be constrained by limits to its current production, but has not commented on any plans to expand the company's U.S. production.
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