Car production in Slovakia rose by 10% to 1.08m vehicles in 2023
Car production in Slovakia rose by 10% to 1.08m vehicles last year, the local automotive union ZAP reported. Production fell during the pandemic due to chip shortages, but last year’s output was just 30,000 short of the record year of 2019. Production is set to rise to 1.13m this year and to 1.5m in 2027 when production starts at the Košice Volvo plant. Slovakia remains the world leader in per capita car production. In productivity, output per employee, Slovakia comes second in the world after Spain. The automotive sector accounts for 47% of industry sales and 41% of exports. It directly employs 170,000 people.
The Kia car plant in Žilina assembled a record 350,000 cars last year, up 39,000 annually. Jaguar Land Rover in Nitra also ran at full capacity of 150,000 cars last year and increased output by a few tens of thousands of cars. The Bratislava Volkswagen plant increased output by 22% to 330,000 cars. Amid preparations for expansion, Trnava's Stellantis plant cut production by 15% to 265,000 (70% was Citroën C3 and the rest Peugeot 208 models). It is expanding production capacity to 400,000 cars a year.
New car sales rose 13% last year to 101,842 units. SUV models had a 52% share. Electric cars accounted for just 2.7% of the total, compared to the EU average of 14.2%.
