European Auto Manufacturers Association (ACEA) accepted the request of Hyundai Motor Europe (HME) to become a member of the Association since January 2012.
Thus, after a presence of over 40 years in Europe, Hyundai Koreans join the most powerful car on the Continent organization, founded in 1991. Hyundai is the first Korean car manufacturer who becomes a member of ACEA, in a context in which the relationships between Europeans and Koreans are easily strained on Free Trade Agreement, by which duties imposed on cars made in Korea to be removed.
Hyundai has increased steadily in Europe and the company expects a sale of five million cars in 2011. HME’s headquarters is in Offenbach, Germany, and coordinates the marketing, sales and after-sales in Europe.
Hyundai owns a factory in the Czech Republic at Nosov, which currently produces over 50% of the cars delivered in Europe. 2,600 people working in plant and their numbers will grow during the summer, when a third shift will be added.
The current ACEA members are BMW Group, DAF Trucks, Daimler, Fiat, Ford Europe, General Motors Europe, MAN Truck & Bus, Porsche, PSA Peugeot Citroen, Renault Group, Scania, Toyota Motor Europe, Volkswagen Group, Volvo Cars and Volvo Group. For all these holdings states 2.3 million people work directly, and another 10 million horizontally.
ACEA members yearly invest 26 billion euros for research and development.