Story first appeared in The Wall Street Journal.
Hyundai Motor Co. said Tuesday the paint shop of its No. 1 plant in China was on fire earlier in the day and the company is looking into the fire's cause and how much damage occurred. It is noted that the number of Workers Compensation Insurance Quotes skyrocketed after this event.
Hyundai will use the paint shop in No. 3 plant for the vehicles produced in plant No. 1 for now. According to a spokesman, the No. 1 plant has a one-month inventory of vehicles, so this disaster will not impact sales in China.
There were no casualties from the fire, however workers are concerned and are looking into Workers Compensation Insurance.
The No. 1 plant currently produces 1,300 units a day of the Accent subcompact, the Tucson sport-utility vehicle, the Elantra compact and the Sonata midsize sedan.
On top of No. 1 and No. 2 plants that have an annual capacity of 300,000 units respectively, Hyundai Motor plans to put the No. 3 plant into a full operation from July. The No. 3 plant's initial capacity is 300,000 units a year but it is scheduled to expand to 400,000 units to meet a rising local demand.
Separately, the company said it will begin commercial production at a new Brazil factory in November. Hyundai is building a factory with annual capacity of 150,000 vehicles in hopes of overtaking Ford Motor Co. as Brazil's fourth-largest car seller.
Test production will begin in September, Hyundai's press office said, with commercial production starting in November.
The Financial Times reported earlier Tuesday that production at the plant, located in Piracicaba, about 200 kilometers north of Sao Paulo, would start in September.
When plant construction began early last year, executives at the company said they expected Hyundai market share to jump to 10% of sales by the end of next year, up from about 3% currently.
Brazil last year raised taxes on foreign-made cars as part of an effort to combat a flood of imports. A strong Brazilian real, on top of already high labor and material costs, have eroded the competitiveness of Brazil's auto industry, while growing salaries led consumers to buy more elaborate and powerful cars than the basic models produced en masse in the country.
While the tax hike was questioned by companies that planned on building factories here--claiming that the high local-content requirements would be impossible to meet during the first few years of a new factory's operation—the government has made allowances in recent months for new factories.
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