Hyundai and Kia Open Their First Dedicated 3D Printing Center — 30 Years After Their First Printer

Key takeaways

Hyundai Motor and Kia have opened the Additive Manufacturing Solution Center (AMSC) at their shared Namyang R&D Center in Hwaseong, South Korea — Hyundai Motor Group’s first site built specifically for additive manufacturing.
It arrives nearly three decades after the group installed its first industrial 3D printer in 1996.
Five processes run under one roof: DLP and SLA, polymer powder bed fusion, metal powder bed fusion, and wire arc directed energy deposition (DED-WAAM) in steel, stainless, aluminum and titanium.
Every printed part passes a Quality Inspection Cell checking dimensions, tensile strength, bending stiffness and impact resistance against production-equivalent standards.
Live output includes jigs and fixtures, service parts for discontinued models, motorsport components, and a reverse-engineered side sill for the Hyundai Pony.

Hyundai Motor and Kia have opened up the Additive Manufacturing Solution Center, a facility at their shared Namyang R&D Center in Hwaseong, South Korea that puts polymer and metal 3D printing, post-processing and part qualification in one building. By Hyundai’s own description it is the group’s first purpose-built facility dedicated to additive manufacturing — arriving nearly thirty years after Hyundai Motor Group installed its first industrial 3D printer in 1996.

Thirty years from first printer to first facility

The AMSC occupies newly constructed space inside the Advanced Mobility Solutions building, and it is the third stop in a four-part series Hyundai has been publishing on its digital R&D infrastructure — alongside the Driving Simulator, the Digital Measuring Center and the NOVA Lab. That framing matters more than the ribbon-cutting: plenty of automakers own printers, but very few build a site where design, fabrication, post-processing and qualification testing all sit inside the same perimeter.

Five processes, matched to the part

Rather than standardizing on one technology, the center runs a spread of them. On the polymer side: DLP, which cures a whole resin layer at once with UV light, and SLA, which traces geometry with a guided laser — both aimed at prototypes and design validation where dimensional accuracy is the point. Polymer powder bed fusion is the third route; the surrounding powder supports the part, so no support structures are needed, and Hyundai says vapor smoothing brings the finish close to injection-molded parts.

For metals, the AMSC pairs metal powder bed fusion with directed energy deposition. For larger structures it uses DED-Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing (DED-WAAM), depositing metal via welding arc in steel, stainless steel, aluminum and titanium — Hyundai’s answer for big structural parts that are awkward to make in one piece conventionally. It showed a vehicle motor housing twice over: as printed in WAAM, and after CNC machining. That is how large-format metal AM actually works — the printer gets you near net shape, the mill gets you to the part.

Behind the hardware sits design for additive manufacturing (DfAM): engineers reworking components specifically for printing to enable part consolidation, lattice structures and lighter geometries. That is where the return is — parts optimized for weight and performance rather than for what existing tooling permits.

The quality cell is the interesting part

Every component produced at the center passes through a Quality Inspection Cell, where dimensional measurements, tensile strength, bending stiffness and impact resistance are evaluated against production-equivalent standards. In-house material verification and metallurgical analysis sit behind that testing.

This is the line between a well-equipped prototyping shop and something that can feed a vehicle program. Printing a part is easy; proving it behaves like a conventionally manufactured one, repeatably, is the expensive bit — and it is why so much additive capacity across the industry never graduates past tooling and mock-ups.

From jigs and fixtures to a Hyundai Pony

The applications already running through the AMSC fall into four groups. Vehicle development is the largest: prototypes, development components, manufacturing jigs and fixtures, and service parts for discontinued models or emergency replacements where cutting fresh tooling makes no economic sense.

Heritage restoration is the second — engineers rebuild legacy components through 3D scanning and reverse engineering, demonstrated by a side-sill part for the Hyundai Pony, the company’s first production car, reproduced with period-accurate surface finishing. Motorsport is the third, with anti-roll bar blades, damper brackets and brake duct rails printed for the weight-to-rigidity balance racing demands. Manufacturing operations are the fourth.

We are rapidly internalizing additive manufacturing technologies through a growing range of applications across the Group. Beyond vehicle components, we are expanding their use in high-value applications such as equipment consumables and manufacturing tools.
Hanwoo On, Senior Manager, Additive Manufacturing Solutions Team, Hyundai Motor and Kia

Why it matters: automakers are pulling AM in-house

The word doing the work in that quote is internalizing. Hyundai and Kia have stopped treating 3D printing as a service they buy and started treating it as infrastructure they own — printers, DfAM expertise and qualification testing all inside the fence.

BMW made the same bet earlier. Its Additive Manufacturing Campus at Oberschleissheim near Munich has moved from prototyping toward industrial production, with the first vehicle components made by wire arc additive manufacturing scheduled for series production in 2027. Porsche Classic set the legacy-parts precedent years ago with laser melting and sintering for rare collector spares; Hyundai’s Pony side sill is the same play on newer kit.

What the AMSC changes is where the capability lives — not yet how many cars carry printed parts. The center is built to make series production possible. Whether it delivers is a 2027–2028 question.

FAQ

Where is Hyundai and Kia’s new 3D printing center?

At the Namyang Research and Development Center in Hwaseong, South Korea, inside a newly built space within the Advanced Mobility Solutions building. Namyang is Hyundai Motor and Kia’s shared R&D campus.

Which 3D printing technologies does the AMSC use?

Five: DLP, SLA and polymer powder bed fusion on the polymer side; metal powder bed fusion and directed energy deposition, including DED-WAAM, on the metal side. WAAM materials listed are steel, stainless steel, aluminum and titanium.

Is Hyundai 3D printing parts for production cars?

Not for series volume, on the evidence published so far. Confirmed output is prototypes, development parts, jigs and fixtures, service parts for discontinued models, motorsport components and heritage restoration pieces. Hyundai has not announced a printed part on a current production vehicle.

How does this compare to BMW’s additive manufacturing campus?

Similar strategy, different stage. BMW’s Oberschleissheim campus has already moved from prototyping toward industrial production, with a stated 2027 target for its first WAAM vehicle components in series. Hyundai’s AMSC has only just been detailed publicly and carries no announced series-production date.