AI Auto Podcast May 1, 2026

S7E28: Inside Hyundai’s MetaPlant—A Multi-Propulsion Future Takes Shape in Georgia

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Concept

car that doesn't need a driver

They’re talking about a car that can drive itself. Instead of a person doing everything, the car uses sensors and computers to handle steering and speed.

Brand

Hyundai Mega Plant

They’re touring Hyundai’s big new factory in Georgia. The point is that it’s designed to build cars efficiently, with lots of automation.

Term

automation

Automation means the factory uses machines to do work that people would otherwise have to do manually. In this case, robots help with repetitive or heavy steps on the assembly line.

Brand

Boston Dynamics. Atlas

Boston Dynamics makes robots, and Atlas is one of their well-known robot designs. They’re using robots like this to help with work in the factory.

Car

Hyundai Ioniq 5

The Hyundai IONIQ 5 is an electric vehicle. It’s the model Hyundai says they’re making at this plant.

Brand

Kia

Kia is another car brand owned by the same big group as Hyundai. The hosts are saying the plant might build Kia cars too.

Car

Genesis is a luxury line of cars made by Hyundai. The podcast mention sounds like they’re talking about where these cars are produced. It’s brought up because it affects how many vehicles can be built.

Concept

electrified models

“Electrified” means the car uses electricity in its power system. In this segment, they’re saying the plant will mainly build electric (and possibly hybrid) vehicles.

Concept

EVs

EVs are cars that run on electricity stored in a battery. The plant is planning to start by making electric vehicles.

Term

ice

ICE means a traditional gas or diesel engine. They’re saying this factory is focused less on those and more on electric options.

Term

powertrains

A powertrain is the car’s “moving power system.” It includes the main engine or motor and the parts that send that power to the wheels.

Term

internal combustion engines

An internal combustion engine is the classic type of car engine that burns fuel to make power. The hosts are saying some people still want that kind of car, so Hyundai plans to keep offering it.

Term

plug-in hybrid

A plug-in hybrid is part gas car and part electric car, but you can charge it by plugging it in. That means you can sometimes drive on electricity for a while before the gas engine takes over.

Term

hydrogen

Hydrogen vehicles use hydrogen to make electricity for the car. Instead of charging like an EV, they refuel with hydrogen at special stations.

Company

Waimo

Waimo is the company Hyundai teamed up with for robo-taxi work. The idea is to help them move toward self-driving taxi service.

Term

cameras and radars

These are the car’s “eyes” and “distance sensors.” Cameras help with what’s around you, and radar helps measure how far things are and whether they’re moving.

Term

autonomous ready vehicle

“Autonomous ready” means the car is built so self-driving equipment can be added and connected easily. It may not be fully driverless yet, but it’s designed to support that capability.

Company

Magna

Magna is a company that helps build and modify cars for special projects. In this case, they add the remaining equipment after the main car is assembled.

Term

upfitted

Upfitting means taking an already-built car and adding the extra gear it needs. Think of it like customizing the car with the specific equipment for a special purpose.

Brand

emotional

“emotional” sounds like the name of a company that provides self-driving software. Hyundai is partnering with them and investing in the relationship.

Concept

fully autonomous vehicle

A fully autonomous vehicle is a car that can drive itself. Instead of you steering and braking, the car uses sensors and computers to handle the driving.

Term

EV

EV means electric vehicle. It’s a car that runs on electricity stored in a battery, not gasoline.

Concept

charging infrastructure

Charging infrastructure is where EV charging stations are located and how easy they are to use. If there are enough stations, EV ownership feels less stressful.

Company

Circle K

Circle K is a convenience-store chain. Here, they’re partnering to add EV charging spots so drivers have more places to plug in.

Term

rechargearies

“Rechargearies” is the name they’re using for places where you can charge your EV. The goal is to make charging easier by putting it where people already stop.

Concept

IONI network

The “IONI network” is described as a charging network associated with IONIQ/Hyundai’s EV ecosystem. The segment frames it as expanding through additional locations, increasing charging availability for compatible vehicles.

Term

Tesla Supercharging Network

Tesla Superchargers are fast charging stations run by Tesla. The hosts are saying EV owners can benefit from those stations too, depending on the car’s charging setup.

Term

Electrify America Network

Electrify America is a company that runs fast-charging stations for EVs in the U.S. They’re bringing up this network to show there are more places to charge.

Term

NAX ports

“NAX ports” means the car has a charging plug/standard that works with more than one charging network. That’s what lets the car charge at different fast-charger brands.

Concept

compatibility

Charging compatibility means your EV can use a charger without problems. It depends on whether the car’s charging plug and system match what the station supports.

Term

North American charging standard

The North American charging standard is the common “plug type” many EV fast chargers use in the U.S. If your car supports it, you can charge at more stations.

Term

electric car

An electric car is powered by a battery instead of gasoline. You charge it at home or at public chargers, and the big question people have is whether it can handle normal trips.

Car

Ioniq 9

The Hyundai Ioniq 9 is an all-electric car. The host is saying that real owners don’t just drive it like a science project—they use it for normal daily trips and charging routines.

Term

capacity

Capacity here means how much energy is stored in the car’s battery. If you only use a small part of it each day, you still have plenty left for occasional longer drives.

Concept

peace of mind

“Peace of mind” means feeling confident you can complete your trip without worrying about the battery. For EVs, that usually comes from having enough range and charging options.

Term

range

Range is how many miles an electric car can go before it needs charging. The point here is that extra range makes it easier to handle surprise longer trips.

Term

test drive

A test drive is the short drive you do at a dealership. The point here is that a few minutes usually can’t show you what it’s like to live with the car day after day.

Concept

electrified cars

“Electrified” just means the car uses electricity in a meaningful way. That could be a plug-in hybrid or a fully electric car.

Term

fully electric

A fully electric car uses electricity only—no gas engine. You charge it at home or at public charging stations.

Topic

production line

A production line is the factory process where cars are built step-by-step. Cars move through stations where different work gets done.

Topic

robots working

They’re talking about robots in the factory. The robots help build cars as part of the production process.

LIVE

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Today we're sitting in a car that doesn't need a driver.

Interesting story here. We're at the Hyundai Mega Plant in Savannah.

We're with Dan Wang, who is senior manager for product planning for Hyundai.

You are basically the person in between the executives, the engineers, the designers, the suppliers, the factory, and the consumers.

A little bit of everything.

So you are the person who directs where the company is going with the products.

There's a lot going on with Hyundai and that's the reason we're here at the plant.

Because this is the newest plant for Hyundai around the world, maybe? I don't know if that's correct.

It is our newest plant.

An amazing facility. We were coming down from downtown Savannah and two miles away almost.

And you start seeing it already. It's huge. Tell me a little bit of the numbers in the plant here.

You know, I don't know all the specifics. But generally speaking, it's our newest plant, the Mega Plant.

It's over a billion dollar investment by the company.

It's our latest manufacturing assembly plant. It's really focused on efficiency.

It's a smart plant, flexibility with a lot of automation.

And what I mean by automation is a lot of the robotics that help.

The Boston Dynamics. Atlas is called the name of it.

Atlas is one. But you also have a lot of robotics support on the line themselves.

Meant to help support the assembly line workers to ease the burden of the more repetitive tasks or the heavy lifting of sorts.

And at the end also because some of those repetitive things actually improve the quality.

Because you can control with one software programming task.

Everything that is going to be and make sure that every robot is doing it at the same exact way you want to do it.

The quality comes standard, I guess.

Yeah, there's very little deviation. It's very exact and precise over and over.

Whether it's the first time or the millionth time, it's always going to be placed in the same spot.

In the same area with very little deviation.

So what is being built now here in this plant?

For Hyundai.

For Hyundai today we are manufacturing our IONIQ 5.

Yeah, which is the one we're sitting in.

We're sitting in the IONIQ 5 today and also the 3-row IONIQ 9.

But this plant, I understand, has a capacity or can have a capacity of half a million cars a year or something like that.

And then you build Genesis here too and maybe Kia, which is part of the Hyundai Group globally.

Yeah, right now it's just the two models.

We are evaluating other potential models to be manufactured here.

The focus on this plant is more for electrified models.

Not so much ice.

So certainly EVs to start with, we may consider adding in other models, hybrid or other types of powertrains here as well.

But certainly electrified.

Yeah, and right now the whole market or the whole industry globally is going through a very confusing time.

Let's say because of the war in Iran, the high oil prices.

But Hyundai has decided that electric is a big part of the future.

And that's why you're still developing new cars, building this one now, getting into new partnerships like that.

The way I started talking about this, we're sitting in a Waimo car.

So that's electric eventually in the Hyundai's perspective is really important.

Not maybe the only thing, but really important, right?

It's a very important part of our roadmap strategy.

It's not the exclusive strategy, right?

So we're offering a variety of choices for our consumers.

Some consumers prefer to continue driving and purchasing internal combustion engines.

So we have that.

We also have hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and then full EVs.

And hydrogen.

And hydrogen too.

There's an excellent truck right behind us.

So yes, our intention is really to provide choice and meet the consumer where their mobility needs are.

So we're sitting in a Waimo Ioniq 5 because Hyundai obviously partnered with Waimo.

That's a very interesting topic because I think I was telling you before we started recording that just a couple days ago, I was in Miami.

I took an Uber and the driver recognized us from the YouTube channels and all those kind of things.

I started asking questions about the cars and he's actually afraid of losing his job.

Which I told him, well, that's gonna happen.

Maybe it's not gonna happen to you in the next year or five years or maybe 10 years.

Probably you will see it in your lifetime.

He's only 30 years old.

So we don't know.

I mean, you know much better than the rest of us.

But the industry is moving into this technology and that's why Hyundai partnered with Waimo.

Tell me more about that, this partnership.

Our partnership with Waimo is really meant to support their efforts and their journey to provide robo taxi service.

Our partnership provides for the assembly and the manufacturing of the vehicle for Waimo.

Waimo's expertise is in the development of the systems, some hardware as well as the software to support.

That meaning all the cameras and radars that look completely different from a regular car.

Like the ones that stick out on the side, on the top and everything like that.

That's correct.

Where we provide our expertise is in our class leading manufacturing capabilities and scale.

We were talking about before with the factory here with the robots and all that kind of things.

So you have that car, you said in your presentation 90% ready for Waimo?

It will be an autonomous ready vehicle.

Approximately 90% to maybe 95% of the vehicle is assembly complete.

The remaining balance of about 5 or 10% will be upfitted by Waimo's partner Magna in Phoenix, Arizona.

So they will put all these other additional equipment.

And this is an industry that we already sent it.

I wrote on the one in Arizona, in San Francisco, in LA.

I think they're moving into Miami now.

So it's the network expanding and in other countries I'm sure it's happening too.

So it's a feature in a way.

I mean, like again, maybe not next year or five years for everybody to be driver less, but it's happening, right?

And you're working on it.

I think the industry in general is working towards incorporating more autonomous capabilities for personal vehicles.

It might take some time, but certainly there is a market demand and need for self-driving capabilities for certain scenarios.

And Hyundai also have its own division for, I don't know if it's completely autonomous or there's like, it's called emotional.

Yes. So Hyundai has an equity stake in emotional and emotional is also a autonomous software provider and partner.

And unlike the Waymo vehicle with the emotional IONIQ 5, we've designed, produced and assembled the entire vehicle, inclusive of the sensors, bumper to bumper.

And pretty much for the same function.

Autonomous service, people will get it like as an Uber, but with no driver and then like go on their own.

That is correct. As a fully autonomous vehicle, yes.

Let's go back to the regular electric cars for the public.

You're building the IONIQ 9, which by the way won World Car of the Year, NAKTOI have a lot of awards.

I'm part of it. I'm judge in both organizations.

And also Hyundai has a partnership with, let me get it correct because it's very close to IONIQ.

Correct.

Tell us about that partnership because as you were saying, the infrastructure, which is one of the main worries from a lot of people who have never driven electric.

Now it's getting much better. Like in reality, I mean, there's numbers that can support that, right?

Yeah, it's getting better month by month.

Our most recent announcement with IONIQ is the partnership of Circle K, the convenience stores.

Yeah.

So Circle K will add what they call rechargearies.

So it's not only recharging your EV, but recharging yourself.

Oh, that's a good idea.

Yeah, right.

So the addition of Circle K adds additional locations to the IONI network.

So in and in everything, we're looking at approximately 500 plus locations throughout 20, late 26 to early 27 and beyond where the locations will continue to grow.

And this is on top of the existing Electrify America Network as well and the Tesla Supercharging Network.

So our vehicles that have NAX ports have the compatibility and the ability to take in charges from Tesla Electrify America.

Yeah, and let's verify both of the acronyms.

So NAX is the North American charging standard.

So the Tesla charger basically.

And IONIQ is a conglomerate of what seven, eight manufacturers, pretty much the main ones, Mercedes, Stalantis, Hyundai, Volkswagen, that they partnered together to develop this network.

And again, this is going to keep growing.

So I think they're already 107 sites functional, but they're like building right now as we speak, right?

Yeah.

They're aggressively building out more and more locations.

So it's very feasible and it's quite easy to go cross country with those networks available.

And it's going to get better month over month.

And again, like for, I'm sure you get the question a lot because you work at Hyundai, you develop the products for them.

And I get a question a lot from friends, neighbors, family and the people who have the most doubts or is the people who have the less information, obviously, but the less experienced.

They've never been into an electric car, but they was, oh, I will never buy an electric car because I will never make it from in Miami or in Florida from Miami to Orlando in California.

I don't know what the typical example that you hear LA to Vegas, maybe or something.

But like, let's try to explain again and again and again, and we're going to keep doing that because people need to know that's not reality.

Right?

Like you can make your trips, your daily life.

You were giving some pretty cool data about how long people are driving the Ioniq, how often they charge.

It's interesting to see what's happening in real life.

Yeah, for day to day use, you know, our latest early buyer study for the Ioniq 9 shows that on average, people drive about 35 miles per day.

Which is like 10% of the capacity.

But having that extra capacity and range is really meant for peace of mind.

So if you have that odd occasional spontaneous trip that you'd like to take, you know, to Fort Lauderdale or to Vegas, you can do that.

You can do that and you've got the range to support it.

But again, there's a lot of concerns for people that are on the fence and don't know much about EVs.

What I would suggest is there are a variety of rental car companies that offer EVs.

I would say that would be a great opportunity to drive one out for a few days or about a week.

Sometimes the typical test drive of the dealership is like 5-10 minutes. That doesn't give you the real idea.

It's not a good measure of how it would be to live with.

So renting one for a week or two is a great opportunity to see how it would work for your lifestyle.

Hyundai, we offer an EV subscription program or rental program that can also be explored by people that are on the fence.

And again, this plan, which is mainly focused on building new electrified cars from plug-in hybrids to fully electric, it's a testament.

You guys said in the company that it's going to be not the main resource for car drivers, but a very important segment of the industry, electric cars.

It is. It's an important strategy for the company. Our mission as a smart mobility provider is to provide solutions to get people to where they want to go to efficiently and responsibly.

Well, thank you very much for your time. Now we're going to go inside the plant. We're going to see the robots.

We're going to be seeing cars coming out of the production line, I guess, right? Today.

I mean, the cars are already coming out here from here to go to the dealerships around the country and all that.

And that's the plan that Hyundai has for the next several years, decades.

Celebrating 40 years, by the way, right? In the U.S.?

Celebrating 40 years.

On Hyundai, amazing story and amazing company.

So thank you very much for your time and let's go to see the robots working.

And the humans.

Thank you.

That's it for today's AI Auto Podcast with Javier Moda. Hope you enjoyed the ride as much as we did.

Tune in next time for more on how AI is steering the wheel of tomorrow's autos. Drive safe, stay curious and catch you later.

What's up, everybody? This is Edvin Martinez of the Cine Poppies and make sure you check out our latest episode talking about the Netflix documentary Juan Gabriel, I Must, I Can, I Will.

In this episode, we followed the Latino legend for performing on the streets of Juarez, Mexico as a teenager to selling out shows around the world as a global superstar.

So join us as we channel our inner devils on the latest episode of Cine Poppies on the Revolver Podcast at work.

About this episode

Hyundai’s Georgia mega plant is framed as the center of a broader electrified strategy, with current production focused on the IONIQ 5 and a plant setup built for flexibility and automation. The discussion also covers Hyundai’s Waymo collaboration, where vehicles are mostly assembled in Georgia before final autonomous upfitting in Arizona. On the consumer side, the guest pushes longer test drives and rental programs to ease EV hesitation, while Hyundai expands charging access through Circle K and other networks.

automation autonomous ready vehicle Boston Dynamics. Atlas cameras and radars capacity car that doesn't need a driver charging infrastructure Circle K electrified cars electrified models

Hyundai Genesis Hyundai Ioniq 5 Hyundai Ioniq 9

Original notes

In this episode, we visit Hyundai Motor Group’s MetaPlant near Savannah, Georgia, for a closer look at the company’s forward-looking manufacturing and product strategy. Dan Hwang, Senior Manager of Advanced Vehicle Technology Planning, explains Hyundai’s commitment to offering a full spectrum of propulsion options—from internal combustion and hybrid to plug-in hybrid and fully electric vehicles—while also advancing toward fully autonomous mobility through its partnership with Waymo.

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AI Auto Podcast

Javier Mota

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