Appetite for production

Hyundai's Ulsan plant is the world's largest car-making facility, with five separate factories and an on-site port. WILL RIMELL is awestruck

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Looking out from the bridge of the Morning Christina, the view is filled with thousands and thousands of factory-fresh Hyundai cars. Up to 6000 of them are being loaded onto the 11 decks of the 380-metre-long vessel, bound for California, across the Pacific Ocean. “It'll take about 13 days,” says the ship’s captain. “Then we'll come back and do it again.”

This is the final step of a unique process in car manufacturing that is based here at Hyundai's Ulsan plant on the south-eastern coast of South Korea. With a dock literally on site, cars are built, tested and shipped all in one seamless operation.

How many cars are produced here? A staggering 1.5 million a year - that's almost double the UK’s 2024 output from 25 factories, and it would have been enough to fulfil 98% of all new car sales in Italy last year. Welcome, then, to the world’s largest vehicle plant.