Hyundai Motor is promoting plans to produce the Sonata Taxi, an LPG vehicle at its plant in Beijing, China, and import it to China. This is the first time that a Hyundai car produced in China has been imported into South Korea.
Hyundai Motor revealed on the 13th that after the production of Sonata taxis was stopped in July this year, the taxi industry has successively asked to "build a follow-up model". Hyundai Motor has been manufacturing LPG taxis based on the seventh-generation Sonata launched in 2014, but it has decided to discontinue production due to aging models, difficulty in parts, and declining profitability.
But the taxi industry has been asking Hyundai Motor to develop a follow-up mid-size taxi. Sonata Taxi is the only mid-size LPG taxi that requires the purchase of a more expensive electric car, the Ioniq 5 or a quasi-large LPG Junjue taxi, which is a significant cost burden after the discontinuation of production.
A Hyundai Motor source said, "In order to stably serve as the best vehicle in the taxi industry, we decided to import it out of consideration for social responsibility. ”
However, the Hyundai Motor Labor Union asserted on the same day: "The company violated the collective agreement that 'domestically produced vehicles will not be imported from overseas.'" In this regard, Hyundai's position is to import cars that have been discontinued, so it is not a violation of the agreement.
It is reported that due to the current serious shortage of labor in South Korea, the authorities have successively issued preferential policies for the introduction of foreign workers, including exemption or only a simple language test to obtain well-paid jobs in South Korea, as well as the same social security policy as South Korean citizens, and after working in South Korea for several years, you can obtain the right of residence in South Korea.