Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Joining us is someone who has to chart the course amid a dynamic let's say, dynamic trade landscape. Hondai Motor CEO Jose Munios joins us here on set. Great to have you here. I know you're here for the New York Auto Show, so really appreciate you dropping by seven thirty one. Les, talk to me first about your cars. Very popular in the US. Your business has grown tremendously.
You have Hyundai, you have Kia, you have Genesis, which Katie I do bought one of, and you produce a lot more cars than people would expect here in the United States.
Yeah, you're right, So thank you much for having me so with supplaicit being that we do so, you're absolutely right. So we are now the third largest oem A globally. And then definitely it is not new, but for the last six years or so, we have come to the conclusion that the USA is the most important market for US globally and it's meant to continue to do so.
So today we have factories in Alabama and in Georgia, and just three weeks ago we open a brand new factory in Savannah, Georgia to increase production by another five hundred thousand cars, so we produce about forty percent of the car that we sell in America here in America. And then we are with these five hundred thousand more cars, we're going to get to one point two million cars produced. This is a big undertaking.
I do have one minor correction. I actually lease my Genesis. I didn't buy it, and okay, I kind of wish I had, because I'm worried about car prices rising, and you did promise that you wouldn't raise your prices through June second, and I'm curious. I'm not just asking for myself either, what happens after June second to that price pledge.
Well, first and foremost, you know, as mentioned, we are very committed to this market. We announced just three weeks ago in the White House with our executive chair, Mister cho our big commitment to America with a twenty one billion dollar investment in this country in the next five years.
So this means that we're going to increase capacity up to one point two million cars, but we are also going to increase everything that has to do with the supply chain to be able to produce those cars, including green and steel. So we're building a six billion a state of the art green steel factory. We call it
the Electric ARCT Furness in Louisiana. And in addition to that, we are investing in new technologies like Boston Dynamics, bringing more chips to America with Nvidia, also in autonomous viving, with Emotional and even with ebitols supernal here. So this is really big. So thanks to those investments, we're able to produce cars like Juice I'm Glad you like it. DV seventy is the most popular Genesis, followed by the GB eighty and it's produced here in America in our plant in Alabama.
So, as a company that has made bigger commitments twenty one billion through twenty twenty eight, this is another fourteen thousand direct jobs that you reported. What do you think more largely of the terror of posturing by the Trump administration. Do you think some of it is actually working to bring more factory jobs on shore in the United States, or do you think that there's a real risk here that a lot of component parts gets so expensive that it dwarts a lot of buying in this country.
Well, in our case, we actually took the decision to invest in our new Savannah plant during the first Tramp administration. So you don't build a plant overnight, and you don't build plants thinking on incentives. So we took this decision some time ago, and then this came to fruition just three weeks ago, as mentioned, and then we don't look at things in the short Obviously we like free trade.
We think in our global business because the components come from all over the world, free trade is the best for our business. But our commitment is such that we have to navigate through this situation. And in fact, when all these tariffs and uncertainty came to life, we wanted to reassure our customers that we would guarantee their prices. So that's why we came up with this the Handai Customer Assurance Program to ensure we will not increase prices
during this period. Then after that we will evaluate the situation, but we will always focus on bringing the best product to the market with the highest safety rates. We're number one in America in terms of top safety Pick Plus, and then with the best quality and good features. And you have to always be competitive regardless of tariffs.
Can I ask about the rest of your supply for the US market? I think about forty percent you make in the US, right, I'm pretty sure that you produce cars in Mexico for the rest of the world. And then we get a lot of South Korean imports from Hondaikia and Genesis. Is that? Am I doing the math correctly? And then how does that Korean supply look? Are you talking to the White House? Are you talking to South Korea about getting carve outs?
Well, in our case, in the case of Handaid Motor Company, we produce in the US. We don't produce in Mexico. Really maybe very minor, but we took a concert decision to invest here in the USA. The other the rest of the production comes mainly from South Korea. Well, we are part of the ALIAS for Automotive Innovation. John Bosella, the President is representing the industry and it's conveying to the government the needs that we have in the industry,
which are pretty much common across the board. And then we know that there are some discussions between the South Korean government and the White House. We are not actively part of that discussion. And then obviously I cannot reveal what they talk about. But definitely we all want to ensure that there is a a plain level field for everybody so that we can compete in good terms in the market, and we want to be competitive. I maintain
this message for the consumer. We will be competitive and then the market will decide, depending on the supply and demand, if there's going to be some price increase or not. But again, we need to be competitive, right, So that's.
What I was wondering. I mean, what does competitive mean? Does that mean you're eating the costs to keep your market share, you know, keeping your costs that consumers pay, car buyers pay, and willing to take the head or you know, how does that dynamic work?
That dynamic is not different to the way it's being done over the last thirty years or so. It's simply in the short term and an additional burden to manage given all the implications of the of the supply. Again, our job is to focus on what we can control. The cause is something we can control. How we responding to the increase in tariffs, localizing investing mode in the country so that we don't get to be hit by tarifts. That's a simple solution and then on the revenue side,
we'll have to see how the market reacts. If we have the opportunity to take maybe some reducing centives, increased price here there, we will do. But you're not going to see like a huge increase all of a sudden, or we are not planning to remove cards from the portfolio simply because of the tariffs, et cetera. Again, the most important is a good product, safe product, good quality, good features, and be competitive in the market. And then the rest is our job to try to optimize localizations.
Honda I coo amazing coverage here because of course certainly very dynamic let's call it time in of sheriffs, and also the time for the New York Auto Show. I grew up going there every year of my life, so looking forward to seeing you there