Hyundai battery plant in Georgia set to open months after ICE raid
The factory slated to provide batteries to Hyundai’s electric vehicle plant near Savannah will open later this month following a prolonged delay caused by an immigration raid last year that rippled across Georgia and the globe.
Hyundai CEO José Muñoz announced the battery plant’s imminent opening Tuesday at the Semafor World Economy conference in Washington. Semafor is a digital news outlet and the annual event features Fortune 500 CEOs, government officials and business leaders.
The battery factory is a joint operation between the Korean carmaker and Korean battery giant LG Energy Solution and is located on the Hyundai Metaplant campus along I-16, about 30 minutes west of downtown Savannah.
A spokesperson for the Korean automaker Wednesday confirmed the battery plant’s opening schedule. Plant leaders are “finalizing the calibration of ... production processes” ahead of going fully operational.
“This joint venture is a cornerstone of Hyundai Motor Group and LGs commitment to the United States,” read a statement from Hyundai. “It will manufacture battery packs for electric vehicles being assembled at Hyundai Motor Group Metaplant America, supporting the company’s goal of producing more vehicles closer to where our customers live.”
Gov. Brian Kemp lauded news of the opening, which he said “will further cement (the Hyundai Metaplant’s) transformative status and Georgia’s position as the leader in advanced manufacturing.”
Muñoz at the conference reportedly emphasized how the raid has not changed his company’s investment plans, nor its focus on growing in the American market. He said Hyundai has three top priorities, “U, S and A,” echoing a phrase he told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution shortly after the immigration raid during his company’s annual investor meeting in New York City.
The Sept. 4 immigration operation at Hyundai’s sprawling $7.6 billion campus resulted in roughly 475 arrests and sparked a diplomatic crisis between the U.S. and South Korea.
More than 300 of the detained workers were Korean nationals, who were accused of being in the U.S. on expired or ineligible visas. The workers were installing machinery and training their American counterparts at the battery plant. The project was set to open late last year, but it was delayed several months as a result of the operation by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
President Donald Trump went from initially celebrating the raid to damage control, posting on social media days after the arrests that he doesn’t want to discourage foreign investment. Hyundai has pledged to invest more than $26 billion in the U.S. through 2028.
Muñoz said a White House official called to apologize about the raid, an incident Muñoz first learned about from news reports. Kemp similarly learned about the operation through news reports.
The Hyundai campus is the largest economic development deal in Georgia history by number of promised jobs with 8,500.
Muñoz told Semafor on Tuesday evening that the company applied the Korean concept called “pali-pali,” which means to “hurry, hurry.”
“And we were able to catch up,” he said. “So we are launching on time.”
The 2.5 million-square-foot battery factory was mostly completed by December and has more than 500 employees, he said. Muñoz added that the “vast majority” of employees who will produce the batteries are local.
Hyundai has been sourcing batteries for its Georgia-produced EVs — the Ioniq 5 and Ioniq 9 — within the state. The SK Battery America factory in Commerce has supplied the power cells since April 1, 2025.
That facility last month laid off 958 employees, or more than a third of its workforce. It is unclear if those cuts are due to Hyundai shifting its battery sourcing to the Metaplant campus factory.
Hyundai and SK are also partnering on an under-construction battery plant near Cartersville. That factory will supply batteries to the Kia factory in West Point and a Hyundai plant in Alabama that are incorporating EVs into their production lines.
About the Authors
Zachary Hansen, a Georgia native, covers economic development and commercial real estate for the AJC. He's been with the newspaper since 2018 and enjoys diving into complex stories that affect people's lives.
Adam Van Brimmer is a journalist who covers politics and Coastal Georgia news for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
