South Korean carmaker Hyundai Motors plans to develop its own semiconductor production to reduce its dependence on suppliers, says its global chief operating officer Jose Munoz.

"The industry on chips is responding very, very quickly," says Munoz in an interview, the company confirmed to Kallanish. “Intel is investing a lot of money to expand capacity and in our case, too, we want to be able to develop our own semiconductors within the group so that we are less dependent in another similar situation.”

Although Hyundai has suspended operations at some plants, Munoz said the worst of the crisis is over. For the carmaker, the hardest months were August and September, he says.

The Hyundai Mobis component unit will play a key role in the implementation of this plan.

“Hyundai aims to increase car deliveries in the fourth quarter to the level of its business plan and to compensate for some of the production losses,” he says.

Along with Toyota and Tesla, Hyundai is among those carmakers that have increased global sales despite semiconductor shortages.

Munoz, who is also president of Hyundai Motor North America, adds the company is on track to begin production of electric vehicles in the United States in 2022 and seeks to both improve its existing plant in Alabama and increase its production capacity in the country.

According to him, the US government should extend the proposed tax incentives for electric cars to $4,500 per vehicle manufactured in factories in the United States, where workers are not members of unions. The infrastructure bill currently winding its way through the US Congress contains provisions for EV incentives tied both to domestic manufacturing and union workplaces.This has been jeered by Tesla and other non-union carmakers (see Kallanish passim).

"Workers in the US are the same everywhere," Munoz says. "We would like the conditions to be the same for everyone."