In order to secure development while navigating political unrest and the economic uncertainty in the United States, South Korea’s Hyundai Motor Group announced on Thursday that it would increase domestic investment by 19% to a record 24.3 trillion won ($16.65 billion) this year.

In terms of worldwide auto sales, the group—which comprises Hyundai Motor and Kia—comes in third place, behind Volkswagen and Toyota.

Research and development for next-generation products, electrification, software-defined cars, hydrogen fuel-powered items, and other technologies will account for 11.5 trillion won of its planned investment.

According to a statement from the group, it would also invest 12 trillion won in regular projects like increasing the production of new models and electric vehicles and roughly 800 billion won in strategic projects like autonomous driving.

As part of this, the firm intends to construct a plant for its novel “hypercasting” EV manufacturing technology at its Ulsan production site.

Tesla’s “Gigacasting” technique, which streamlines production and reduces costs by using big single parts to create large portions of automobiles, is being adopted by Hyundai and other manufacturers.

“Hyundai Motor Group is making the largest investment ever in South Korea this year because it believes that continuous and stable investments are essential to overcome the crisis and secure future growth engines in the face of growing uncertainties,” the company stated without going into detail about the situation.

Euisun Chung, the executive chair of Hyundai Motor Group, mentioned global conflict and recession as external dangers last week.

Before reversing gains to settle down 0.2% and up 2.3%, Hyundai Motor and Kia shares were up 2.3% and 3.8%, respectively, in early trading. The overall market (.KS11) closed up 0.03% after opening a new tab.

Following a decline in 2024 and falling short of their goals, Hyundai and Kia announced last week that they wanted to increase their combined global sales by 2% to 7.39 million vehicles in 2025.

Domestically, political unpredictability following President Yoon Suk Yeol’s imposition of martial law and subsequent impeachment caused consumer sentiment to plummet in December to its lowest level since the COVID-19 epidemic in 2020.

Donald Trump, the US president-elect, has declared that he would apply uniform 10% taxes on imports.

Last year, Hyundai Motor began manufacturing at a facility in the U.S. state of Georgia in order to qualify its cars for tax incentives under the previous government, which Trump has stated he will eliminate.

Jose Munoz, the automaker’s global chief operating officer and U.S. chief, was elected co-CEO in November. He was the first foreigner to hold that position at a significant South Korean business. According to industry observers, the appointment was made to assist the carmaker in navigating any obstacles that the new Trump administration might present.