DETROIT -- Kia Motors Corp. has long-term plans to build its own engines at the assembly plant now under construction in West Point, Ga., a top company executive said.
Construction began in October on the $1 billion Kia plant. Production is expected to start in late 2009. The company hasn't announced which vehicle will be built there.
Ian Beavis, vice president of marketing for Kia Motors America, said during an interview at the Detroit auto show that the Georgia plant eventually will produce its own engines. But no timeline has been established, he said.
Kia currently uses engines built by Hyundai Motor Co. in Korea, Mitsubishi Motors Corp. and the global engine joint venture involving Hyundai, Mitsubishi and DaimlerChrysler AG.
Meanwhile, Kia is rethinking plans to use, initially, engines from its sister Hyundai factory in nearby Alabama.
"Those plans haven't been finalized," Len Hunt, Kia Motors America COO, said during an earlier interview at the auto show.
At the Georgia plant's groundbreaking, Kia Motors Corp. President Chung Eui Sun said the Korean automaker would use engines built by Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Alabama LLC, 80 miles away in Montgomery, Ala.
The 2-year-old Hyundai plant has the capacity to build 300,000 four- and six-cylinder engines annually for the Santa Fe SUVs and Sonata sedans assembled there.
Since Kia hopes to produce 300,000 vehicles a year at the Georgia plant, sharing engines with Hyundai in Alabama would require an expansion of the engine shop.
A spokeswoman at the Hyundai plant has said more than once that officials there have no knowledge of the plan.
Kia has not said what vehicles it will produce in Georgia, and Hunt said he "genuinely" doesn't know.
"It's strictly a Korean decision," he said.
Hunt said he would like to see the brand's high-volume models come out of the plant, which he said also would export vehicles to markets in Latin America.
The Spectra, known as the Cerato in some markets, is Kia's best-selling vehicle, worldwide and in the United States. U.S. sales of the Spectra totaled 72,557 last year, up from 56,088 in 2005.
Behind the Spectra is the Sedona minivan, which sold 57,018 units in the United States last year.
The Sportage SUV sold 37,071 units in the United States in 2006, up from 29,009 in 2005.
You may e-mail April Wortham at awortham@crain.com
