AUTOMOTIVE STUDY 2025 / Šaroch (ed.) et al.

signi cant declines in production. In contrast, the automotive industry in some former Eastern Bloc countries, such as Slovakia and the Czech Republic, prospered. e Czech Republic ranked fth in the EU in 2019 with a production of 1.4 million motor vehicles, even reaching fourth position in passenger car production. e countries of Hungary and Romania have been able to successfully attract automotive companies thanks to their skilled and relatively cheap workforce, as well as their low corporate tax rate, and have thus become major players in the growth of car production. In 2023, the Czech Republic has consolidated its position as the third largest producer of passenger cars in the European Union with 1,398 thousand passenger cars (a year-on-year increase of 15%). However, the largest producer of passenger cars in the EU is by a wide margin Germany (4,109 thousand) ahead of Spain (1,907 thousand). Slovakia narrowly edged out France to become the fourth-largest car producer in the EU. Slovakia and the Czech Republic are exceptional in the relative importance of the car industry, which is strongly re ected in per capita production. e growth in passenger car production in 2023 was mainly in the more important passenger car production, while the decline was rather in countries where the production of passenger cars is „only“ in the tens to lower hundreds of thousands per year, such as in Finland (59% year-on-year decline) or Slovenia (-11%) or Austria and Portugal (-5% each). is also points to a certain centralisation of production into a few major countries in the production of passenger cars within the EU.

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