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Hyundai Motor Group has put its second factory in Beijing up for sale as part of a broader effort to adjust its China strategy. It is understood that Hyundai Motor Group will focus on electric vehicles and luxury car series in the future to reverse the sales downturn in the world's largest automobile market for many years. It is understood that Beijing Hyundai's No.2 plant mainly produces Sonata, Langdong and Tusheng, and Hyundai Motor is negotiating with several Chinese electric vehicle manufacturers to sell the plant, including Xiaomi Group.

On March 30, Xiaomi Group announced its official entry into the car-building field at the press conference. Lei Jun, CEO of Xiaomi Group, will also serve as CEO of smart electric vehicle business. On September 1, Lei Jun, chairman of Xiaomi Group, said on Weibo that Xiaomi Automobile Co., Ltd. was officially registered and Lei Jun served as legal representative.

During this period, Xiaomi's official website has posted a number of jobs related to the automotive industry, most of which are located in Haidian District, Beijing. On July 28, Xiaomi Group Chairman Lei Jun also through micro bo official propaganda, Xiaomi car start automatic driving department recruitment, The first batch of recruitment of 500 automatic driving technicians, Work place is also in Haidian District. According to Sky Eye, Xiaomi Automobile Co., Ltd. is registered in Beijing City Beijing Economic and Technological Development Zone, which means Xiaomi Automobile is basically determined to settle in Beijing.

Although Xiaomi Group's car-building project is in full swing and has begun to accelerate the layout of smart car-related technologies, it is still unknown how Xiaomi Group builds cars. From the existing information, Xiaomi obviously wants to have more rights in building cars, so having its own vehicle factory is also a high probability event. At present, whether Hyundai Motor is negotiating with Xiaomi Group on the sale of the factory, or whether Xiaomi Group has the intention to acquire Beijing Hyundai Factory No.2, currently needs to wait for official confirmation.

It is worth noting that this is not the first time Hyundai has sold a factory. At the end of May this year, a number of media quoted a document signed for Shunyi District to report that the ideal car will add a new factory in Beijing Shunyi District, with a total investment of 6 billion yuan, relying on the original Beijing Hyundai No.1 factory building and land resources to build a digital, flexible intelligent manufacturing factory. Carry out research and development of key technologies such as complete vehicle, core parts and automatic driving, and support more than 2000 scientific and technological talents such as automatic driving, artificial intelligence, big data and industrial Internet. The project is planned to be put into operation in 2023 and the industrial output value will reach 30 billion yuan by 2024.

Beijing Hyundai No.1 Factory, which appears in the document, has been shut down for two years. This factory is the earliest vehicle manufacturing factory established by Hyundai Motor in China. It was put into operation in 2002 with an annual production capacity of 300,000 units. It has produced Sonata, Tousheng, Accent, Mingyu, Rena, Elantra and other models. According to media on-site visits, at present, the factory's guard booth and electric retractable door are labeled with the sign of "planned retention".

In response to the above news, the ideal car responded with "no comment". According to the recruitment information published on the official website of Ideal Automobile, Ideal Automobile is urgently recruiting positions such as "Factory Leader-(Beijing) Manufacturing Base" and "Project Management Senior Manager (Beijing Factory)," all of which are located in Shunyi District, Beijing.

It is understood that Hyundai Automobile has five complete vehicle production plants in Beijing Shunyi No.1, No.2 and No.3 Factory and Hebei Cangzhou and Chongqing, with an annual production capacity of 1.65 million vehicles. It is understood that in 2016, Beijing Hyundai sold 1.14 million vehicles annually, reaching the peak of sales volume and maintaining Beijing Hyundai's expanded production capacity. However, Beijing Hyundai's sales after expanding production capacity fell far short of expectations, with total sales falling to 790,000 vehicles in 2018, only 87 per cent of its sales target of 900,000 vehicles. At the beginning of 2019, Beijing Hyundai was exposed that 2000 people would be laid off at Factory No.1, No.2 and No.3, and plans to shut down Factory No.1. Since then, Beijing Hyundai has had a hard time, with cumulative sales of 716,000 vehicles in 2019 and 502,000 in 2020 as a result of the epidemic.

It is understood that Beijing Hyundai's sales target in 2021 is 560,000 vehicles, and the cumulative sales volume in the first half of this year is 203,000 vehicles, with a target completion rate of 36.25%. At present, it is still very difficult for Beijing Hyundai to complete the sales volume of 360,000 vehicles in the second half of the year. Although new cars such as Tusheng L 10th generation Sonata, iX35 and Elantra have been launched since 2020, only Elantra performs slightly better in terms of monthly sales volume, and the sales volume of other models is very ugly. Even so, Hyundai Motor Group stressed that it would not give up the Chinese market. In order to regain its former glory, Hyundai is now focusing on SUV and luxury models, and has launched hydrogen energy and luxury models such as Nexo, ionic 5 and Janice G80.

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