Hyundai and Kia Turn to 3D Printing for Car Parts Traditional Methods Can't Match

Hyundai and Kia have opened the Additive Manufacturing Solution Center at their Namyang research campus in South Korea, giving their engineers a dedicated factory floor for metal and polymer 3D printing that does not rely on conventional molds or tooling.

The center runs a full stack of additive processes. For polymer work, it uses vat photopolymerization with DLP and SLA systems, plus polymer powder bed fusion for parts that need injection-molded surface finishes. On the metal side, laser powder bed fusion handles high-precision components, while directed energy deposition and wire-arc additive manufacturing produce large structural parts in steel, aluminum, and titanium.

What the center actually builds

During vehicle development, the team prints prototypes, manufacturing jigs, fixtures, and service parts for discontinued models where original tooling no longer exists. One example already demonstrated is a side-sill panel for the original Hyundai Pony, recreated by 3D scanning, reverse engineering, and resin printing with an authentic finish.

Motorsports applications already include anti-roll bar blades, damper brackets, and brake duct rails made on metal systems. Those parts need a mix of light weight and high strength that additive manufacturing can deliver without the long lead times of CNC machining from solid billets.

Why it matters

Traditional manufacturing still wins on volume. But when Hyundai needs a one-off bracket, a low-volume prototype, or a part with an internal lattice structure to save weight, additive manufacturing lets engineers skip the mold entirely. The center's Quality Inspection Cell checks every printed batch for tensile strength, bending stiffness, and dimensional accuracy against production standards.

Hyundai says the setup cuts the time to evaluate physical mockups from one or two months down to about a week. That pace matters as the company shifts toward software-defined vehicles, where hardware changes can still require physical validation before a prototype ever hits a test track.