Slovakia Automotive Market 2020

With four car manufacturers and 1.15 million cars produced in Slovakia in 2019, Slovakia was the world leader in per capita auto production for the sixth year in a row. Automotive production represents about 13.9 percent of Slovakia’s GDP, 49.5 percent of Slovakia’s industrial production and 46.6 percent of country’s industrial exports.

In 2019 there were over 340 Tier 1 and Tier 2 auto suppliers, providing parts and subassemblies to clients throughout Europe and beyond. The biggest five by turnover are Mobis Slovakia, SAS Automotive, Faurecia Automotive Slovakia, Schaeffler and ZF Slovakia. Automotive production directly employs 177,000 people, while the total number of people employed in the automotive industry is 275,000.

In Slovakia there is excellent potential to penetrate the R&D activities of the large automobile corporations in specific segments. The development of applied R&D in the automotive production field is critical for continued sectorial growth, with target opportunities including smart production (intelligent manufacturing with digitalization, sensors, internet of things and automation), innovative materials (composite, organic, memory), components, complex solutions, adjacent processing, 3D printed equipment and recycling of waste.

The Slovak car manufacturing industry produces about 6,000 electric and hybrid cars annually, including the Peugeot e208, Seat Mii Electric, Skoda Citigoe iV, upgraded Volkswagen e-up! with doubled driven range, Porsche Cayenne and Porsche Cayenne Coupe (PHEV), Audi Q7 and Audi Q8 (MHEV). E- cars represent 0.16 percent (only 165 new passenger electric cars were sold in 2019) of all cars on Slovakia’s roads.