Hyundai Motor Company to close for a week due to semiconductor crisis

As the global automobile industry began to cut production due to the lack of automotive semiconductors, Hyundai Motor Company was also unable to avoid production disruptions.

With the prolonged shortage of automotive semiconductors, Hyundai Motor and Kia's "April crisis theory" is becoming a reality.

Hyundai Motor Company announced Tuesday that Ulsan Plant 1 will be closed from Apr. 7 to 14 due to parts supply problems.

Ulsan Plant 1 is producing Kona, a small sports utility vehicle (SUV), and Ioniq 5, the first exclusive electric vehicle of Hyundai Motor Company.

Hyundai Motors explained that the closure was caused by supply disruption in the front camera semiconductor for Kona and PE modules for the Ioniq 5. The PE module is a module for driving parts such as electric vehicle motors and inverter decelerators and corresponds to the powertrain of an internal combustion engine.

Hyundai Motor Company checks its semiconductor inventory on a weekly basis and is directly negotiating with semiconductor makers to secure the quantity of semiconductors for vehicles.

Although the production plan is being adjusted, including reducing the production of vehicles containing semiconductors with insufficient stock and operating production lines focusing on popular vehicle types, the supplies that have been secured are gradually falling short.

In the midst of this, a problem occurred in some of the Hyundai Mobis facilities that produce Hyundai's ambitious product of this year, the Ioniq 5 drive motors, and production disruption became inevitable as the originally planned quantity was not supplied.

Accordingly, it is known that Hyundai Motor Company has significantly reduced its production plan for the Ionic 5 next month.

In the industry, production shortages for Kona and Ioniq 5 are expected to be about 6,000 units and 6,500 units, respectively, throughout April due to component supply disruptions.

As Hyundai Motor decided to reduce the production volume of the Ioniq 5, some suppliers who have stocked up inventory of parts to be delivered according to the original production plan are also in need of countermeasures.