Little South Korea hits Big

January 12th, 2009 at 01:56pm Bob Trojan

Reading today’s news from the Detroit Auto Show made me remember my visit to Hyundai Motors in Ulsan, South Korea back in 1978….

“Hyundai Motor Co. saw its foray into the luxury market rewarded Sunday when its Genesis sedan received the South Korean automaker’s first North American Car of the Year award.

The Genesis narrowly beat out the Ford Flex, a seven-passenger crossover vehicle, for the honor. But Ford Motor Co. won top truck honors for its Ford F-150 in the awards presented on the first day of media previews for the North American International Auto Show in Detroit.”

“General Motors Corp. said today it has picked LG Chem Ltd. of South Korea to supply the lithium-ion battery cells for its Chevrolet Volt electric vehicle.

The cells will be made in Korea, but they’ll be assembled into battery modules and packs at a factory in Michigan. GM Chief Executive Rick Wagoner said the battery assembly facility will be the first in the U.S. operated by a major automaker.”

I remember making these observations during my week long visit back then….

Government of President Park is aggressively developing their country to achieve rapid growth, internal and through the export markets….

Hyundai’s basic approach is to buy the technology from American, Swiss, Italian or any country who has it….

Trend now is to develop their own designs….

Workers are dedicated, loyal to the company, hard working under advers conditions and rapidly learning high skill jobs…

Started building the Hyundai Pony ( after ending a license agreement with Ford) in 1975…

Are designing and constructing new plant (in Korea) to make transmissions and axles to be located at the assembly site…

And if you remember, about 2 years ago, Hyundai opened a new plant down in the south of the U.S.

Maybe 30 years from now, we’ll be able to say the same about our U.S. auto companies?

Entry Filed under: Technology, Economy