Hyundai may bail from U.S. truck market

Hyundai Truck America (HTA) is expected to announce that it is closing its commercial truck operations in Jamesburg, NJ, according to a report from WardsAuto.com. HTA has only imported 20 trucks into the U.S. so far and delivered just three to customers, Wards reported. HTA was to offer HLD150 Class 4 light-duty and HMD230 and HMD260 Class 6 medium-duty trucks for P&D, nursery-landscape, towing-wrecker and food-service applications. According to Wards, Hyundai will exit its truck business because Korean labor unions are demanding a 10-year work guarantee for a joint venture plant with DaimlerChrysler AG. With the future of that plant and those products unclear, Hyundai has decided to leave the market in the U.S., sources told Wards. Jamesburg, NJ-based HTA's decision to tap into the U.S. market proved to be short lived. Fleet Owner reported last December that Hyundai launched the division that began marketing Hyundai-made light- and medium-duty trucks. Hyundai had previously had a trucking presence here via a now-defunct agreement with Bering Truck Corp., which had established a commercial-vehicle assembly operation in Front Royal, VA. HTA spokesman Fred Hammond told Fleet Owner in January that its 30 dealerships were former Bering Truck Distribution LLC dealers. Jamesburg, NJ-based Hyundai Truck America (HTA), headed by Y.J. Choo, said it will start out with an initial group of 30 dealers. Hammond told Fleet Owner in January that the trucks were being assembled in Korea, then shipped to the U.S. He said HTA wanted to test the U.S. market before it made any plans to assemble the trucks in the U.S.