Hyundai’s new EV factory is teeming with robots — and wariness about the future

Driving a 2026 Ioniq 9 SUV around the Hyundai Motor Group Metaplant in Georgia can feel like a victory lap for the South Korean automaker. Hyundai's electric flagship carves out room for three America-centric rows of seats, from a booming brand whose EVs and hybrids already make up one in every four US sales. Even […]

May 29, 2025 - 13:40

Hyundai’s new EV factory is teeming with robots — and wariness about the future

photo of Hyundai Ioniq 9 coming off the assembly line at the automaker’s Metaplant in Georgia

Driving a 2026 Ioniq 9 SUV around the Hyundai Motor Group Metaplant in Georgia can feel like a victory lap for the South Korean automaker. Hyundai's electric flagship carves out room for three America-centric rows of seats, from a booming brand whose EVs and hybrids already make up one in every four US sales.

Even better, the Ioniq 9 and smaller Ioniq 5 are emerging from a futuristic new factory in America, giving Hyundai a defensible bulwark against the tariffs and onshoring fervor of Donald Trump's administration. As I watch these electric SUVs roll off a surgically clean assembly line, Hyundai's opportunistic timing looms as large as the hulking robots that help build its cars.

A tour of the $7.6 billion factory also underlines how many automakers are plowing ahead with long-laid EV plans, regardless of Category 5 Washington winds that threaten to blow away Joe Biden-era support for EV manufacturing, consumer tax credits, and public charging.

Hyundai's opportunistic timing looms as large as the hulking robots that help build its cars

Seen from the air en route to Savannah, the Metaplant resembles a printed circuit board on a green background, blown up to epic scale. Eleve …

Read the full story at The Verge.