OREANDA-NEWS. At the Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Rus plant in St. Petersburg, the mass production of the new generation of KIA Rio started. The beginning of its final assembly was preceded by a long period of preparation, during which the car was adapted to Russian conditions and all production processes were adjusted to ensure the highest quality of the product, reported the press service of KIA Motors Rus.

KIA Rio, the new fourth generation, like its predecessor, which was assembled at the plant in St. Petersburg between 2011 and 2017, is produced by using full-cycle technology with welding and painting the body with a high level of localization - 47%.

In 2016, as part of the preparations for the launch of the fourth generation of Kia Rio, the plant carried out significant re-equipment and thorough preparation of production lines. Thus, new industrial robots were commissioned in the welding shop. As the design of the new KIA Rio is significantly different from the previous generation car, the paint shop staff has reconfigured all the robots of the paint line and the robots of the soundproofing coating. In the assembly shop, several sections of the conveyor were reorganized.

In total, more than 240 industrial robots are installed at the Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Rus plant. During the welding of the body of the KIA Rio it is involved more than 170, and when painting - more than 50 robots. For the production of one car KIA Rio the plant needs about 16 hours. After production, each car undergoes a thorough quality control of the finished product, which takes more than 2 hours.

The lapping tests of prototypes of the new model were carried out jointly by plant engineers and colleagues from the KIA Motors research center in Korea to achieve the best adaptation of the new KIA Rio to the difficult climatic and road conditions of Russia. As part of the tests, the new KIA Rio has passed more than 850 thousand km in various regions of Russia, including Karelia and Murmansk region in the North, the Krasnodar region in the South, and the mountain roads of the Elbrus region. The model was tested in the extreme temperature conditions of the Russian winter and hot summer.