Trailblazer Enters 8th Place in Monthly Exports for December Last Year
Palisade Ranks Lower Than Niro... 80% of Production Planned for Export
GM Korea Bupyeong Plant 1 Aims to Produce 200,000 Trailblazers Annually
[Asia Economy Reporter Su-yeon Woo] The compact sport utility vehicle (SUV) Trailblazer from Korea GM has rapidly emerged as a key export model for Korean automobiles. The Trailblazer, which began full-scale production and export in December last year, is a domestically produced car for which Korea GM is responsible for design, production, and export. Attention is focused on whether the Trailblazer can establish itself as a savior not only for Korea GM, which is experiencing management difficulties, but also for Korean automobile exports.
According to the Korea Automobile Manufacturers Association (KAMA) on the 31st, the Trailblazer from Korea GM ranked 8th in domestic passenger car export rankings for December last year, with 8,704 units exported. This ranking is higher than Hyundai's Palisade (8,593 units) and Kia's Niro (8,557 units). The Trailblazer, produced at Korea GM's Bupyeong Plant 1, started North American exports in December last year ahead of its domestic launch, emerging as a new key export model for Korean automobiles.
The Trailblazer is the first new domestic production model assigned to Korea GM in eight years. Since the compact SUV Trax began exports in 2012, this is the first time a new model not previously produced domestically is being manufactured in Korea. The design was handled by Korea GM Technical Center Korea, which is responsible for GM's compact SUV design and research and development (R&D), and Korea GM manages both domestic sales and North American export production.
To produce the Trailblazer, Korea GM invested $50 million (58 billion KRW) in July last year to reinforce the production line at the Bupyeong Plant. At Bupyeong Plant 1, the Trailblazer and Buick Encore GX are produced with an annual capacity of 200,000 units. The Encore GX is a sort of fraternal twin model sharing the platform with the Trailblazer. Korea GM plans to export more than 80% of the 200,000 units produced annually at Plant 1.
Initial responses in the domestic market are also positive. Since its launch in the domestic market on the 16th, the Trailblazer achieved over 1,000 pre-orders within two days. On the 31st, a ceremony was held at the Bupyeong Plant to commemorate the start of domestic vehicle production, and full-scale vehicle deliveries in the domestic market will begin next week.
A Korea GM official said, "With the Trailblazer being introduced to Plant 1 and the export volume of the Trax, which was previously produced at Plant 1, moving to Plant 2, the overall operating rates of Bupyeong Plants 1 and 2 are rising. We expect the Trailblazer to take over the position of the Trax, which ranked first in export models for three consecutive years, becoming the next-generation key export model."
Meanwhile, looking at the export rankings by domestic passenger car models for the same period (December last year), Hyundai's Kona ranked first with 25,870 units, boosted by strong sales of eco-friendly vehicles. Following were Hyundai's Tucson (22,444 units), Korea GM's Trax (13,468 units), Hyundai's Avante (11,015 units), and Kia's Morning (10,870 units). Among the top 10 export models, seven were SUVs and three were regular passenger cars, showing a noticeable increase in the SUV share. As the SUV share increased, the export value of domestically produced automobiles last year was recorded at $43.04 billion, up 5.3% from the previous year. However, the export volume decreased by 2% year-on-year to 2,401,383 units.
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