Jaguar Land Rover reveals the new Defender model, which will be produced in its Nitra plant, Slovakia. (source: Courtesy of JLR)
For almost fifteen years, Slovakia has been a global car-manufacturing powerhouse, boasting the highest automobile production per capita in the world year after year.
The country again confirmed its leading position in the automotive industry last year when four carmakers registered total production of more than a million cars, despite the Covid-19 pandemic and a global microchip crisis.
But top representatives of the car industry in Slovakia have warned the country cannot afford to rest on its laurels and said it must catch up with other states as the global auto industry makes the switch to electricity.
“Large battery factories, which are the future of electric mobility, have been built everywhere in Europe except Slovakia,” Alexander Matušek, chair of the Slovak Automotive Industry Association (ZAP), said in mid-January as he presented an overview of the Slovak automotive industry in 2021.
