Beijing Hyundai’s Chongqing factory is reportedly in production halt for months, a person inside Beijing Hyundai told a local media outlet.

Photo credit: Beijing Hyundai

The insider disclosed that the factory and most of its workers have been taking some downtime since December 2021. Beijing Hyundai responded that the company did not receive any internal documents about the said production suspension.  

The Beijing Hyundai Chongqing factory was built in 2017 with a designed yearly production capacity of 300,000 vehicles. The factory holds the production tasks of the automaker’s REINA, ENCINO, LA FESTA, and ix25 models. The models are considered unpopular in the Chinese market, some with two-digit monthly sales results.

In fact, the Korean joint venture used to own five factories in China. Excluding the Beijing first factory sold to Li Auto, Beijing Hyundai still holds two factories in Beijing, one in Cangzhou and the aforementioned Chongqing factory.

Records show that the automaker’s current four factories have a total designed annual production capacity of 1.35 million vehicles. However, the Korean carmaker’s annual sales volume in China was only 385,000 vehicles in 2021, roughly 28.52% of its production capacity.

Notably, the sales decline is not particular for Hyundai Motors. According to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, in the first month of 2022, Korean branded passenger vehicle sales only accounted for 1.7% of the entire Chinese market.