'Definitely, in the year 2025 two (Kia) EV models will be locally manufactured here'

With plans to grow by 10 percent in 2023, Kia Motors plans to expand annual capacity to 4.2 to 4.5 lakh units in the next two or three years. Hormazd Sorabjee and Ketan Thakkar spoke with Tae Jin Park, Managing Director of Kia India about the South Korean automotive brand's India plans.

- Hormazd Sorabjee and Ketan Thakkar

WITH SUVS AT the core of Kia's model range in India, the South Korean car maker has taken advantage of the SUV boom and has outperformed the market with stellar growth ever since it entered India in 2018. And now, with the market moving towards cleaner alternatives, Kia too is exploring a range of alternate powertrain options for its future model line-up Tae Jin Park, Managing Director of Kia India spoke to Autocar Professional on a wide range of subjects including a fresh investment of Rs 2,000 crore to locally manufacture two EVs by 2025 whilst also exploring possibility of bringing CNG and Hybrid vehicles.

We've just begun 2023 so how do you see the year ahead?

The year 2023 may see some difficulties in the form of global recession, geo-political complexities like the one between the USA and China. Plus, there are still some supply chain challenges and there will be new regulations in India.

The regulations of RDE, CAFE II and the safety issues are all coming together. So, all these kinds of things bring challenges, but we think the Indian automotive industry is in a relatively bright spot compared to other countries. Even though last year India's e slowed down, it is higher than any other country. The Indian automotive industry in 2023, despite difficulties, we expect the growth to continue, but it will be in single digits.

What is Kia's growth plan for 2023? Do you expect to outperform the market, and do you need to expand capacity soon?

Though there are lots of challenges, we are targeting around minimum 10 percent growth this year. Our production capacity, in the last 2-3 years, has continuously increased. When we started, it was scheduled to be 300,000 units per year but at the end of last year we had already increased it to 370,000. So, we're continuing to increase our production capacity. In the next 1-2 years, we'll reach a minimum of 420,000-450,000 production capacity.