Today was the second-to-last day of our trip. We woke up in Pohang, packed our rooms, hopped on a charter bus, and headed to Ulsan, where we would get a tour of the Hyundai plant later in the day.
Over the course of the two-hour trip, we got to see a lot more of Korea’s coast. It was very beautiful, with sandy shores and clear, bright water. We passed through a few small towns and some roadside stores, one with a giant golden gorilla out front, which was odd but somewhat fitting, as there is always the occasional weird mascot for almost anything here.
Shortly after, we arrived in Ulsan and explored the company museum, which has been a common feature of all the company visits so far. It was a smaller museum than some of the others we have seen, but it was very nice and showed the evolution of Hyundai as a brand through some of the cars they have produced, which they set up as a sort of showroom.
They specifically showed us the first car ever produced in their factory, the Ford Cortina, which they produced before they had the capital to develop their own car. Then they showed us the first vehicle to bear the Hyundai name and logo that we know today, the Pony, which was very cool to see. Then they talked about early prototyping of electric vehicles, which they had developed as far back as 1991, creating an electric version of the Sonata. However, the range was very limited, with a full battery lasting only 44 miles. Something interesting about this prototype was that the car’s battery was in the same place as the engine, rather than under the car like in modern EVs, which was unsafe at the time due to the risk of combustion in collisions. Finally, they showed us the N Vision 74, their new prototype hydrogen-electric hybrid vehicle, which really shows how they are pushing the bounds of road vehicles once more, just as they did in 1991 with their EV prototype.
We were then taken on a tour of the Ulsan plant, where we saw their various facilities, including the building where they weld, paint, and assemble the parts that go into the final product. Most interestingly, many of these processes are fully automated, such as painting and welding, and the assembly is heavily assisted by smart systems.
One of the places we got to see in more detail was a building dedicated to final assembly, which had a significant number of human workers, unlike what we heard about the other facilities. It was very cool to see the cars lifted and moved, and major parts like doors removed and reattached by machinery. At the same time, workers assembled complex parts such as wiring and headlights, which would be very difficult for a machine to handle. I thought about how smart this factory configuration was and how automakers in the US don’t really build near the coast, so they can’t take advantage of cheaper and more efficient exports.
We were then taken off the premises and quickly left for the KTX station to get a bullet train back to Seoul, where we would spend the remainder of the day. This was really the last significant amount of free time left on the trip, so I used it to pick up some last-minute gifts to bring home. It was another great day, a bit bittersweet because the trip was coming to an end, but certainly filled with memorable experiences.