Kia paused its production at its No. 3 plant in Hwaseong, South Korea after the fire broke out the premises. This break-off is scheduled till September 6. Kia’s EV6 electric crossover is one of the models that are built at this unit.
Kia, a Hyundai Motor Company affiliate, is halting their operations at its Autoland Hwaseong 3 plant in the south of Seoul. As per the news coming from the Korea Economic Daily, the temporary pause could significantly impact the production of thousands of vehicles. This mainly includes the EV6 crossover. The other models that have also been affected comprise the K5 and K8 sedans respectively.
The incident of the fire started around 7:30 p.m. on Monday on the second floor of the plant. This is at the robot-operated painting line. Fortunately, there were no casualties were reported. The plant’s automated fire extinguishing system was instantly triggered by sensing the fire and it controlled the fire in approx 40 minutes. However, in this misshape eight of the painting line robots were hampered.
According to the Kia official, We’re looking into the exact cause of the fire. We’ll do our best to resume operations at the Autoland Hwaseong 3 factory as soon as possible.
Kia will fully reinstall the impacted equipment
Even though the fire was contained and the other lines were operating normally. The automaker suspends the entire facility for quality control, according to officials. At the same time, Kia will fully reinstall the impacted equipment during this shutdown caused by the fire before trial production.
Additionally, the report states that vehicle delivery delays are major because of the production stop. Therefore, as a result of the same, ordering a new car takes approximately a month in order to deliver from Kia’s Hwaseong complex.
Kia disclosed its plans to develop electric purpose-built vehicles at the facility with a new production line last year. Also, mass production is predicted to start by the end of 2025. It is to be noted that, Kia runs eight plants in South Korea alongside six overseas plants. This consists of two in China and one each in the US, Slovakia, Mexico, and India.
