KIA cuts sales forecast

Kia and Hyundai Motors have released a revised joint sales forecast for 2008 that cuts projections by 12.5 percent. In addition, the South Korean automakers will freeze pay for managers given slumping vehicle demand.

Georgia has a keen eye on Kia, given the automaker is building a new plant in west Georgia. The $1.2 billion facility is expected to employ 2,500 workers.

The plant under construction in West Point is scheduled to open in November 2009. Company officials have consistently said the plant will open on-time, despite weakening economic conditions in the United States. This is to be Kia’s first plant in the U.S. Hyundai has a plant in neighboring Alabama. Kia is a Hyundai affiliate.

Automotive suppliers in Georgia

The future of America's three auto companies hangs in the balance in Congress. The automotive industry has a huge impact on Georgia's economy. From parts to suppliers, the effects of trouble in that sector could be widely felt here. But who they're making parts for could cushion the blow.
The state is home to more than 300 parts manufacturers and suppliers. The companies make everything from electric window mechanisms, to auto glass and bed liners.
According to the Georgia department of Economic Development more than 23-thousand people work for these companies. Heidi green is the Deputy Commissioner for Global Commerce. She says suppliers here are somewhat insulated because they also make parts for foreign cars, produced in the south.

"They may be seeing some excess capacity with one company, but VW, which you know, numbers were very, very strong this last quarter, provides them with an opportunity to use up some of that existing capacity that they might have. That's the advantage that some of these parts companies have that maybe an automotive company doesn't."

Green says construction on the Kia plant in West point is going full steam ahead and that close to 4-thousand supplier jobs will come from that.

Traffic delays possible as Kia brings in equipment

Georgia State Patrol will escort a machine weighing over six-hundred-thousand pounds and occupying two lanes of traffic to the new Kia plant in West Point tonight.

The machine, along with other equipment, arrived at the Port of Savannah last week.

The Georgia Department of Transportation expects delays late tonight and into the early morning as the one-hundred-twenty-eight loads head to the South Korean auto-maker’s plant.

(Macon Telegraph)

New Kia supplier touts $15M factory

Front car seat frame. (Courtesy, Johnson Controls)

Milwaukee-based Johnson Controls Incorporated is building a $15 million automotive interior parts plant at West Point, in western Georgia.

The factory will produce seat and door panels for Kia vehicles to be built at the Korean carmaker's $1.2 billion assembly plant nearby.

The firm says the plant will employ over 300 people when it reaches full production.
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Signs on the road to completing the Kia car plant. (file/Dave Bender)

Construction of the 130,000-square-foot plant will begin next week, according to officials.

The Kia plant is set to open in 2009.

Click here for more GPB News coverage of the Kia plant.

Worker killed at west Georgia Kia site

A construction worker has died from an accident at the Kia auto factory site in west Georgia. The Troup County coroner says 47-year-old Ollie Tate of Cartersville was killed Tuesday morning at the plant in West Point. No details on the accident were given. Officials with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration are investigating. The 2.4 million-square-foot Kia plant is scheduled to open in November of 2009, and expected to employ at least 25-hundred people.