Kia Performs Economic Miracle In Europe

Bertel Schmitt
by Bertel Schmitt

Slovakia is part of the euro zone. While whole countries need to be bailed out or go bankrupt, the town of Zilina is peaceful – and busy. At the Kia plant, more than 253,000 cee’d, Venga and Sportage models have rolled off the assembly lines, more than the plant made all last year, Reuters says.

October output alone jumped by 35 percent on the year to 30,000 vehicles, plant managers told the Reuters reporter. The company wants to build 285,000 units this year.

Reuters sees the growth “in stark contrast with the rest of the European car industry, which has shed thousands of jobs as the economic downturn erodes demand and forced measures such as Ford Motor Co’s plan to close a Belgian factory with more than 4,000 workers and shift production to Spain.”

Kia sales in the EU were up 20 percent January-September. Sales of affiliate Hyundai are up 9.3 percent while the EU new car market as a whole shrunk 7.6 percent year-to-date. Slovakia could attract Volkswagen, Kia, and PSA. At one time, Volkswagen alone amounted to 19 percent of all of Slovakia’s exports.

Bertel Schmitt
Bertel Schmitt

Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.

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  • Victor Victor on Nov 08, 2012

    This is another example, alongside Dacia, that there's money to be made in Europe.

  • Ron Ron on Nov 08, 2012

    Slovakia builds more cars per capita than any other country in the world. Not a surprise, considering that its labor costs are a fraction of the major European car-building countries; many Slovakians speak German (VW has the largest presence in Slovakia); there is excellent transportation in and out of the country; the government provides considerable incentives.

    • See 1 previous
    • MBella MBella on Nov 08, 2012

      @herb What do you mean by standards of living?

  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?
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