The new Santa Fe Sport is added to the Alabama facility production run, to help keep up with growing demand.

• Additional production will support growing demand in the sport utility segment
• Alabama plant is the home of the Sonata and Elantra sedans
• Plant is capable of assembling 400,000 units per year

Hyundai Motor Company has announced the addition of the Santa Fe Sport to the production schedule at Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Alabama (HMMA) starting in the summer of 2016. This change will supplement existing U.S. production of the sport utility vehicle to meet the growing demand in this popular vehicle segment.

“ We’re very happy Hyundai has been able to make this change, which will result in more great Santa Fe crossovers available to our dealers and customers,” said Dave Zuchowski, president and ‘CEO of Hyundai Motor America. 

“The new production will help us meet the growing demand for one of our most popular products,” said Zuchowski.

Having Santa Fe Sport production join Sonata and Elantra at HMMA will also provide Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Alabama more flexibility to shift product mix to meet market demands.

“We’re thrilled to bring back another pillar of the Hyundai lineup to our production mix here at HMMA,” said Chris Susock, vice president of production, HMMA. “We’ve been extremely proud to build both Sonata and Elantra on our assembly line for Hyundai in the U.S. and we will continue our tradition of quality and productivity with the addition of the Santa Fe Sport in 2016.”

In the coming months, the plant will be coordinating retooling, robot programming and other logistical projects to prepare for start of production this summer. Production targets for Sonata, Elantra and Santa Fe Sport during 2016 will be determined at a later date.

The Santa Fe was last built at HMMA in August 2010.