Two years ago Hyundai’s 75-year-old chairman Chung Mong-koo called a halt to capacity expansion, worried the South Korean group risked running into the kind of quality issues that dogged Japanese rival Toyota when it grew too aggressively in the 2000s.

Now Hyundai and its affiliate Kia Motors are again looking to invest in new manufacturing capacity, running feasibility studies in promising markets such as Mexico and scouting for a site for a fourth plant in China.

The expansion freeze is making it tough for Hyundai to squeeze additional capacity from existing plants. Together Hyundai and Kia last year utilized 105 per cent of their installed capacity, and a consultant familiar with Hyundai’s factory operations noted the group’s US plants, in Georgia and Alabama, were running flat out. – (Reuters)