The factory slated to provide batteries to Hyundai’s electric vehicle plant near Savannah is set to open later this month following a prolonged delay caused by an immigration raid last year that rippled across Georgia and the globe, according to a report by Semafor.
Hyundai CEO José Muñoz announced the battery plant’s impending opening at a dinner hosted by Semafor World Economy on Tuesday. The battery factory is a joint operation between the Korean carmaker and Korean battery giant LG.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has reached out to Hyundai, LG and their joint venture for more information, but the companies did not immediately respond Wednesday morning.
Muñoz at the dinner reportedly emphasized how the raid has not changed his company’s investment plans nor its focus on growing in the American market. He said Hyundai has three top priorities, “U, S and A,” echoing a phrase he told the AJC shortly after the immigration raid during his company’s annual investor meeting in New York City.
Credit: Courtesy photo
Credit: Courtesy photo
The Sept. 4 immigration operation at Hyundai’s sprawling $7.6 billion campus near Savannah, which it calls its Metaplant, resulted in roughly 475 arrests and sparked a diplomatic crisis between the U.S. and South Korea.
Most of the detained workers were Korean nationals, who were accused of being in the U.S. on expired or ineligible visas. The workers were installing machinery and training their American counterparts at the battery plant. The project was set to open late last year, but it was delayed several months as a result of the operation by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
President Donald Trump went from initially celebrating the raid to damage control, posting on social media days after the arrests that he doesn’t want to discourage foreign investment. Hyundai has pledged to invest more than $26 billion in the U.S. through 2028.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
Muñoz said a White House official called to apologize about the raid, an incident Muñoz first learned about from news reports. Gov. Brian Kemp similarly learned about the operation through news reports.
The Hyundai campus is the largest economic development deal in Georgia history by number of jobs with 8,500.
Muñoz told Semafor on Tuesday evening that the company applied the Korean concept called “pali-pali,” which means to “hurry, hurry.”
“And we were able to catch up,” he said. “So we are launching on time.”
The 2.5 million-square-foot battery factory was mostly completed by December and has more than 500 employees, he said. Muñoz added that the “vast majority” of employees who will produce the batteries are local.
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