Three years ago, Hyundai Motor Group purchased Boston Dynamics, the Alphabet startup that specializes in robotic dogs named Spot and humanoids that can run into burning buildings to rescue those inside. If you wondered what possible use a twerking robot dog might be to a major international corporation, the answer is — to be the leader of a pack of robots at the Hyundai Motor Group Innovation Center in Singapore.
This state of the art factory has a build capacity of just 30,000 vehicles a year, which is tiny in the world of manufacturing. But what it can do that no other factory can is take an online order from a customer who wants a vehicle configured in a certain way and build a complete vehicle that can be driven away three hours later.
Hyundai Smart Urban Mobility Hub
In a press release, HMG says HMGICS is a new “smart urban mobility hub” concept, which includes a highly automated flexible production system that provides unprecedented ways for EV buyers to interact with their vehicles and the Hyundai brand. HMGICS symbolizes the Group’s determination to move forward with the creation of sustainable, innovative mobility solutions and progressive customer experiences.
Given its worldwide reputation for innovation and diversity, Hyundai chose Singapore as the ideal home for its first smart urban mobility hub. Delivering a human-centric manufacturing approach, HMGICS elevates collaboration between people, robotics, and AI technology to new levels of synchronization. It includes a Meta Factory, which is a digital twin to the actual factory, to allow ultra-rapid responses to changing customer demands and production requirements.
HMGICS is all about producing purpose built vehicles that meet the precise requirements of individual customers. They will be able to order a vehicle from home, or from here in the facility, choose their color and even select highly personalized elements for their car, then witness it brought to life, the company says. The factory already manufactures the IONIQ 5 and the fully autonomous IONIQ 5 robotaxi, and will begin manufacturing the IONIQ 6 next year.
“HMGICS is an open and connected urban innovation hub that encourages and embraces creativity and collaboration. It seeks to completely redefine the very concept of manufacturing,” said Euisun Chung, Hyundai Executive Chair at the HMGICS Grand Opening Ceremony. “We thought hard about how to meet the diverse needs of our many customers. By combining our manufacturing expertise and the latest cutting edge technologies, the result is this Innovation Center — a new paradigm of manufacturing.”
Eerily Silent Assembly Line
Tech Radar visited the new factory after the ceremony and described it as “eerily silent. The walls, ceilings, and floor are science lab white and there is a robot carefully tending to a variety of salad leaves in the vertical farm that takes pride of place in the entrance hall.”
One of the reasons it is so quiet is because only 29 people work inside the seven story urban factory. Autonomous delivery units quietly move around the factory floor, cruising up and down the various levels to deliver parts to the small team of engineers working on vehicles in a cell-based manufacturing process. Each of the more than 200 robots in the factory is able to complete up to 40 separate tasks.
“This isn’t like a traditional production plant,” explained the head of Smart Factory Technology, Alpesh Patel. “We plan to produce around 70 cars a day here, so it’s no mass production line, but that’s not the point. The speed at which we can react to customer personalization demands and cater to bespoke project requirements is like little else.”
Spot Is The Team Leader
In order to combat potential quality control issues, Hyundai has enlisted the help of Spot, the robotic dog from Boston Dynamics. Spot will routinely trot out from its charging station to check the vehicle or project in question, harnessing the power of advanced camera, sensor and AI technology to scan the vehicle for faults and then report any findings back to the operative and the Digital Command Center that oversees the entire operation.
Only when Spot is happy with the workmanship can the engineer continue to work on the vehicle. Patel says it cuts quality control issues typically found at the end of the process to almost nothing. Once a car is finished, the customer can take it for a test drive on the facility’s 620 meter rooftop Skytrack.
But more than a way to wow customers, Patel says the facility will be integral to the design and build of Purpose Built Vehicles in the future. “We want to invite future mobility providers in and allow them to realize their ideas. This facility allows us to be highly reactive, creating vehicles for specific requirements, rather than just the individual’s desires,” he adds.
The Hyundai Digital Command Center
The heart of the new factory is the Digital Command Center where a handful of highly skilled operatives work surrounded by walls of screens that can pull up a wealth of smart factory data, checking in on efficiency levels of each production cell and predicting when a robot requires servicing or a part needs to be ordered long before the need arises.
A separate section of the room features a full digital twin of the factory floor — referred to as a meta factory — can run simulations when new production requirements arise. Patel claims that currently, staff in the Digital Command Center are integral to the operation, but that AI will soon step up and begin taking care of most of the day to day functionality.
When asked whether just one digital command center could remotely oversee several smart factories like this, Patel said he didn’t see why not. “This is just the baseline. We have only been operational for a few weeks. Once the AI is up to speed, it will free up all of the staff in there to work on other software projects,” he said.
Although the new factory is too expensive for large scale production, the Hyundai Innovation Centre will pave the way for a highly flexible manufacturing process that will assist in the production of purpose built vehicles and smart mobility solutions in the future. Joseph Hongbum Jung, the CEO of HMGICS, said that as cities like Singapore get more congested, they will require smarter transport solutions to operate effectively. He envisions Hyundai being part of that solution.
Preparing For The Future
A purpose built vehicle need not be a car, however. The team at HMGICS stated the futuristic production plant would continue to adapt to changing demands, which could include the production of eVTOL urban air mobility vehicles. Hyundai already is working with Supernal, which is already testing an eVTOL concept craft that could be ready for production in 2028 — assuming Spot The Wonder Dog approves!
