1st ICAI 2020

International Conference on Automotive Industry 2020

Mladá Boleslav, Czech Republic

Therefore, the big car producers are trying to develop and build charging stations across the CEE region including of different incentives for the owners of electrical cars. Such actions may facilitate to access markets and benefit from economies of scale (Beránek, 2017). European Commission and Visegrad countries are currently working on global technical harmonisation, which could help to reduce development costs and avoid duplication of administrative procedures. Such harmonisation may be the key to strengthening EU and particularly the CEE region competitiveness. EU’s goal is to take leader position in technological leadership in the automotive sector. Therefore, Germany, France, Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia have more than doubled the funds for R&D in the automotive sector for the period 2014-2020. The funding is intended for green vehicles, decarbonisation of conventional engines, safety, and information technology infrastructure. Also, European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA) in 2014 presented “A Manifesto for a Competitive European Automobile Industry”. Three main pillars necessary to improve competitiveness of automotive industry were pointed out: driving innovation, fostering growth through international trade and building a supportive regulatory framework. Moreover, ACEA emphasize that European economy is slowly recovering after crisis and it’s about time for European automotive sector to take back leading world position. Automotive industry has large direct employment and job multiplier in the supply chain, as well as the industry’s economic contribution to exports and technology development in general. The automotive industry has significant multiplier effect in the economy. It is important for upstream industries such as steel, chemicals, and textiles, as well as downstream industries such as ICT, repair, and mobility services. Policy makers should focus on reforms necessary to sustain and improve the conditions in which automotive business and industry operate. This could lead to job creation, raising demand, greater prosperity and finally overall economic growth. In addition, automotive sector is huge source of technological, industrial and commercial innovations (Gál, 2017). Moreover, the climate change agenda is rushing technological change to provide innovative solutions. Across the CEE countries, the governments have launched different incentives for the owners of electric cars as a major step towards promoting and increasing the number of sold cars in the region. These incentives were not embraced only positively by the owners as some of the incentives are set only temporarily and the customers do not have a guarantee that it will last for longer period. Moreover, charging of the electrical cars is very much related to the comfort to charge your own car at home. Numerous studies have shown access to home recharging is the most important factor in encouraging consumers to purchase EVs1 and it is clear the market has considerable growth potential just by focusing on citizens with access to a home charger (Lee et al., 2020). The aim of the study is to analyze the competitiveness of the CEE automotive sector through the lenses of electromobility. For that reason, economic performance of the Central and Eastern European automotive sector is evaluated. Authors examined available data for motor vehicle production, employment in automotive industry and trade (Velinov, 2017) Moreover, number of patent application of automotive sector was analysed, as indicator of innovativeness. Second part of article focus on main challenges

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