European Automobile Manufacturers Association announced that May 2013 sales across the 27-nation
European Union dropped to 1.04 million cars. August 2013
Year to date became the worst sales year since 1990, with 8.14 million autos sold.
Austria in Racing For a long time,
Austria imported cars and had small domestic production of trucks and military
Steyr vehicles only.
Magna Steyr is now a contract manufacture that has built a number of cars for foreign companies, most recently for
Aston Martin and
Mini. The motorcycle manufacturer
KTM produces the
X-Bow sports car. There is Opel production in Vienna.
Belarus Belarus had third by volume part of automotive industry of the Soviet Union with near 40,000 annual production. Since that times Belarus specializes on production of own designed superheavy, heavy and middle trucks mainly plus post-Soviet developed buses, trolleybuses and trams. Auto manufacturers in Belarus include
MAZ,
BelAZ and
Neman.
Belgium At the beginning of the 20th century
Belgium had been one of the leading European auto industries with famous and technically advanced brands. But domestic producers did not grow and soon disappeared. At the end of the century Belgium became one of the largest European auto makers with an annual output up to 1.2 million from assembly plants of foreign brands. Its mainly export-oriented auto industry shrunk by half in recent years (to 500 thousand units) due to strong competition with imports from near and far Eastern producers.
Bulgaria In 2012, Bulgaria's first domestic supercar manufacturer
SIN Cars was founded as SIN Cars Limited by the Bulgarian engineer and racing driver Rosen Daskalov in
Ruse, Bulgaria. The road-legal Sin R1 features a 6.2-litre V8 and 7.0-litre V8 engine.
Bulgaria's production strongly depended on auto imports from the Soviet bloc earlier and currently depends on other European and Asian countries. Socialist Bulgaria has small auto industry including nearly 20 thousand units of self-developed
Chavdar trucks and buses as well as the assembly of Soviet
Moskvitch cars. From 1966 to 1970 in the city of
Plovdiv was production of the
Bulgarrenault. The factory assembled
Renault 8 and
Renault 10. Bulgaria produced the
Fiat 850 and
Fiat 124 between 1967 and 1971. They were unofficially called "
Pirin-Fiat". The plant was in the town of
Lovech. The same factory, called "Balkan", also assembled
Moskvitch from 1967 to 1988. In 1994, Rover established Roadcar, a joint venture with a Bulgarian company to produce the
Austin Maestro at a new factory in
Varna, using CKD kits sent from the UK. Production began in July 1995 and 2,200 cars were assembled before the factory closed in April 1996. Together with the Bulgarian company
Litex Motors,
Great Wall Motors has a production base in
Bahovitsa, near
Lovech. They assembly Voleex, Steed and Hover. The factory has an auto assembly capability of 50,000 vehicles annually. There're plans to be increased to 70,000 vehicles annually in the next few years.
Croatia The
automotive industry in Croatia employs about 10,000 people in over 130 companies and generates profit of about . Croatia mostly produces automotive parts and software. Two most prominent car manufacturers in Croatia are
DOK-ING and
Rimac Automobili, while
Crobus produces buses. The automotive industry accounts for approximately 1.8 per cent of all Croatian exports, while 90 per cent of profits in the industry itself are derived from exports. Automotive parts manufacturers in Croatia are well-integrated into the global parts supply chain, such as AD Plastik, which produces for
Volkswagen. Croatia is a fairly new player in the automotive industry and its primary focus has been on the development of luxury grade electric automobiles and supercars. The
Rimac Concept One is one of the world's first electric supercars.
Czechia Automotive industry has strong tradition in the Czech lands.
Tatra produced first car already in 1897 as third oldest car manufacturer in the world. Joined later by brands such as
Skoda. During 1st half of 20th century Czechoslovakia had advanced and highly diversified automotive industry (trucks, personal vehicles, buses, trolley-buses). Tatra 77 is considered the first serial-produced, truly aerodynamically-designed automobile. Post-war socialist Czechoslovakia restored its own auto manufacturing that was the second in the Soviet bloc outside the USSR, producing 250 thousand per year vehicles of all types, including
Skoda cars and trolleybuses,
Tatra, and trams,
Karosa buses. After dissolving of CSSR
Czech Republic has inherited most of its auto capabilities and then has grown many times by German, French, Japanese, and South Korean investments. Now the Czech Republic is one of the most significant European (5th) and World's (15th) auto maker, world's second manufacturer of cars per capita, having annual output near 1.4 million and largest export to Europe, other CIS countries and even to United States. Auto manufacturers in the Czech Republic include original Czech brands
Škoda,
Tatra,
Avia,
Praga, bus manufacturers
SOR,
Škoda transportation,
TEDOM,
Karosa – Iveco and assembly plants of
Hyundai and joint-venture
Peugeot,
Citroen and
Toyota.
Finland Finland depends on imports of cars and other vehicles, it does however have its own (yet small) auto industry which includes the production of
Valmet Automotive cars,
Sisu trucks and buses/coaches of various producers. This has decreased from forty to around a few thousand since the end of the 20th century. The Valmet Automotive -plant in Uusikaupunki produces over 100.000 cars annually, currently Mercedes-Benz A-series and GLC -series. Finland has had at least over 90 bus manufacturers (
list in Finnish), though most of them were tiny and short-lived, or even the bus operators' own construction. Two of these (
Sisu and
Vanaja) were chassis manufacturers, a few (such as ) manufactured complete buses, while most of them built bodywork for buses (and sometimes for bookmobiles and retail vehicles).
France France was among the earliest pioneers in auto production.
Armand Peugeot (along with
Léon Serpollet) produced a three-wheeled steam-powered car in 1889, and produced a four-wheeled car powered by a Daimler gasoline internal combustion engine in 1890. The two main automotive manufacturers in France are
PSA Group, makers of
Peugeot and
Citroen, and
Renault, which makes Renault and
Dacia (in
Romania). In 1975, Peugeot acquired Citroen, and formed PSA Peugeot Citroën. Three years later, the company acquired
Chrysler's European division, the former
Rootes and
Simca auto manufacturers. Renault, which was founded in 1899 and state-owned between 1945 and 1996, temporarily was in alliance with
Volvo and then has been the controlling shareholder of
Nissan since 1999. Renault also had a controlling interest in
American Motors Corporation during the 1970s and 1980s. The other major vehicle manufacturer in France is
Renault Trucks, which is primarily owned by Volvo. Other auto manufacturers that were active after
World War II included:
Alpine,
Facel Vega,
Matra,
Panhard (bought out by
Citroen),
Rosengart and
Vespa. After the war, luxury carmakers were hampered by the taxes based on the
fiscal horsepower rating, or CV, which doomed the
grandes routières such as
Bugatti,
Delage,
Delahaye,
Hotchkiss,
Salmson and
Talbot-Lago (purchased by
Simca). At the end of the 20th century, France was the second largest European (slightly lagging behind Germany) and world's fourth largest auto maker, having an annual production of 3.5–4 million. Due to strong competition from Spain and European imports from Asian, Eastern European, Turkish and other producers, last years output decreased to 2.2-2.3 million and third place in Europe (after Germany and Spain) and tenth in the world.
Germany assembly line, Wolfsburg, in 1973 The
petrol engined automobile was invented in
Germany by
Karl Benz. Furthermore, the
four-stroke internal combustion engine used in most automobiles worldwide today was invented by
Nicolaus Otto in Germany. In addition, the
diesel engine was also invented by German
Rudolf Diesel. Germany is famous for the high-performance and high-quality sports cars made by
Porsche, and the cars of Mercedes, Audi and BMW are famous for their quality and technological innovation.
Daimler-Benz's predecessor Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft was the industry's oldest firm, Daimler-Benz company dates from 1926. In 1998, it bought the American automobile manufacturer
Chrysler, then sold out in 2007 at a heavy loss, as it never managed to bring the division to long term profitability. In the popular market,
Opel and
Volkswagen are most well known. Opel was a bicycle company that started making cars in 1899; General Motors bought it out in 1929, but the Nazi government took control, and GM wrote off its entire investment. In 1948, GM returned and restored the Opel brand. Volkswagen is dominant in the popular market; it purchased
Audi in 1964, which eventually led to the formation of today's
Volkswagen Group. Volkswagen's most famous car was the small, beetle-shaped economical "people's car", with a rear-mounted, air-cooled engine. It was designed in the 1930s by
Ferdinand Porsche upon orders from
Adolf Hitler, who was himself a car enthusiast. However, production models only appeared after the war; until then, only rich Germans had automobiles. By 1950, Volkswagen was the largest German automobile producer. Today, the Group is one of the three biggest automotive companies in the world, and the largest in Europe; and is now part-owned by
Porsche Automobil Holding SE. , seven different car manufacturers belong to the industrial concern: Volkswagen, Audi AG,
Bugatti Automobiles SAS,
Automobili Lamborghini S.p.A.,
Bentley Motors Limited,
SEAT, S.A.,
Škoda Auto, along with
commercial vehicle makers
Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles,
MAN AG and
Scania AB. During German reunification West Germany incorporated non-large (near 200 thousands per year) production of
Wartburg,
Trabant cars and
IFA trucks in
East Germany. With annual output near 6 million now, Germany has been the leader of auto production in Europe since the 1960s, and was the third largest in the world during the 1970s – middle of the 2000s. It's now the fourth largest manufacturer (behind China, the United States and Japan).
Greece Before 1960 there has been only small-scale, or occasional vehicle manufacture in
Greece. Thereafter, production mainly concentrated in commercial vehicles (with production increasing as local type certification laws were made more flexible), while passenger car assembly plants with notable production volumes operated after 1970. Most of the assembly plants were located in the industrial areas of Volos and Athens (assembly of Opel Kadett, Alfa Romeo Alfasud, 45 different models od Datsun/Nissan, Mazda 323 etc.). During the 1970s and 1980s a generation of multi-purpose vehicles were locally developed. According to the Statistical Yearbook of the Greek National Statistical Service (ESYE), annual production of all types of vehicles, including assembled cars, remained close to 20,000 units between 1980 and 1990. By 1992 all major assembly lines had ceased operations and, since then, there has been no large-scale production (current producers include
ELVO,
Replicar Hellas,
Keraboss etc.).
Hungary Some original car production in the Hungarian part of Austro-Hungary at the beginning of the 20th century was lost. Post WWII socialist
Hungary widely imported cars and trucks from Soviet Union and other countries. At the same time Hungary produced small number of heavy trucks (
Rába) and had strong specialization in Soviet bloc in manufacturing of buses (
Ikarus), that made it one of the largest bus producers and exporters (including outside Soviet bloc and Europe). The
Ganz Works, also a long lived Hungarian company, has been manufacturing engines, wagons specialized for electric railway equipment. Post-socialist Hungary significantly decreased the manufacturing of buses but found a large assembly capacities of foreign brands (such as Mercedes, Suzuki, Audi, BMW and Opel) with annual production of more than 400 thousands cars.
Ireland The Irish industry in Ireland has a varied history and despite the small size of the island, a punitive tax on imported cars encouraged a wide range of companies to assemble their cars locally including Fiat, Ford and Renault. Following Ireland's entry to the European Union in 1973, the need for locally produced cars to avoid import taxes reduced, and since the 1980s, production ended and all cars are now imported.
Italy The automotive industry in
Italy began with the construction of the first
FIAT plant (Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino) in 1899 by Giovanni Agnelli. In the following years at least 50 other manufacturers appeared, the best known being
Isotta Fraschini in 1900,
Lancia in 1906,
Alfa Romeo in 1910,
Maserati in 1914,
Ferrari in 1939,
Lamborghini in 1963,
Pagani in 1999,
Mazzanti in 2002,
Spada Vetture Sport in 2008 and
DR Motor Company in 2006. During the first and the second World Wars and the economic crisis of the 70's, many of these brands disappeared or were bought by FIAT or foreign manufacturers. To 1960s–1970s Italy restored own large auto industry that was 3rd-4th in Europe and 5th–6th in the World. In the 1980s Italy overtook the United Kingdom but has conceded to Soviet Union that, like Poland and Yugoslavia, found large-volume production of cars by Italian FIAT help. In the 1990s Italian auto industry became again 3rd in Europe and 5th in World with annual output more than 2 million. But in the 21st century it seriously fallen to near 800 thousand per year and 8th place in Europe and 21st place in the world. Today, the Italian automotive industry continues to boast a wide range of products, from very compact city cars to sport supercars such as Ferrari and Pagani. As of July 2011 Fiat also holds roughly 53.5% stake in the American automaker
Chrysler.
Netherlands in Amsterdam The
Netherlands imports most of its vehicles, having little own manufacturing of less than 200,000 per year. Besides
DAF Trucks and
VDL buses, present Dutch auto production consists primarily of contract manufacturing for
BMW and
Mini by
VDL Nedcar (formerly producing DAF,
Volvo,
Smart and
Mitsubishi), plus a few small sports car companies:
Spyker Cars and
Donkervoort. Another small company,
PAL-V International, is now taking orders for production of a
roadable gyrocopter, slated for deliveries in 2019.
Poland Poland is the
third largest producer of passenger cars in
Visegrád Group, after the Czech Republic and Slovakia. As of the late 2009s and 2010s, Polish automotive sector represents arounds 11% of total industrial production, accounting for about 4% of GDP. The sector employs about 130,000 people, and produced about 800,000-900,000 light vehicles a year. Production of larger
commercial vehicles was at about 70,000-90,000 in that period.
Russia Russia has inherited a main part of automotive industry of the Soviet Union with near 1.8 million annual production of all types of automobiles in
RSFSR. Automotive production is a significant industry in post-Soviet Russia, directly employing around 600,000 people or 1% of the country's total work force. With output of more than 2 million, Russia was the world's 11th and European 2nd (after Germany) automotive largest producer in 2012, and accounts for about 7% of the worldwide production. Due to the
2008 financial crisis, in 2009, the industry produced 600,000 vehicles, down from 1.5 million in 2008 after post-Soviet restoration. The largest companies are light vehicle producers
AvtoVAZ and
GAZ, while
KAMAZ is the leading heavy vehicle producer. 11 foreign carmakers have production operations or are constructing plants in Russia. Russian government presented plans to make Russia as European second automotive producer. Russia is the largest car market in Europe.
Serbia is manufactured in
Kragujevac. The automotive industry in
Serbia and
Yugoslavia dates back to 1939 when the first trucks came out of the assembly lines in the city of Kragujevac. After the Second World War this factory was renamed
Zastava Automobiles and the production of motor vehicles started again under license to
FIAT. Yugoslavia was 2nd (after Poland) European socialist auto maker outside Soviet Union and achieved at high point near 300 thousands annual production, 250 thousands amongst that was Zastava cars. Zastava cars were exported by small quantities to 70 countries all over the world, including the UK. With the
Yugo small car, Yugoslavia undertook wide adverted intervention to US automarket and tried to compete with Japanese analogs in the small car sector that opened after the oil crisis of the mid-1970s. During the 1990s, the political problems and economic sanctions imposed on Serbia, inherited by the Yugoslavian auto industry mainly, halted the drop of production of Zastava cars to just 10–20,000 per year. In 2008, in agreement with Government of Serbia, FIAT Group took over the Zastava plant which is now one of
FIAT factories. The Serbian Government wants to establish Serbia as a new manufacturing location for the automotive industry in Europe and is strongly supporting all the international producers and suppliers in order to open their plants in Serbia. New Fiat model 500L and 500XL will have estimated production between 200,000 and 300,000 in 2013,
Slovakia is now produced in
Trnava, Slovakia. from Slovakia
Slovakia had very little automotive industry as part of Czechoslovakia. After dissolution of the federation, new car assembly plants were built by foreign companies in Slovakia as in other countries in central Europe. Auto manufacturers in the Slovakia currently include 3 OEM automobile production plants:
Volkswagen's in Bratislava,
PSA Peugeot Citroën's in Trnava and
Kia Motors'
Žilina Plant. Since 2007,
Slovakia has been the world's largest producer of cars per capita, with a total of 571,071 cars manufactured in the 2007 alone in a country with 5 million people. Over time this placed it at top spot in car production per capita worldwide by 2013 with a yearly production of over 980,000 vehicles. With this production in 2013 was Slovakia 18th in
the list of worldwide car production by country. Automotive is the largest
industry in Slovakia with a share of 12% on the Slovak GDP in 2013 which was 41% of industrial production and 26% of Slovakia export. 80 000 people were directly employed in the automotive industry in 2014. This number will be even increased when
Jaguar Land Rover starts production in
Nitra in 2018.
Slovenia Having some small auto production in socialist Yugoslavia,
Slovenia became one of the new Central European car making countries and now produces near 200,000 per year, mainly for export.
Soviet Union Spain After WWII, Franco's
Spain lagged behind main European auto manufacturing countries for decades. Only at the end of the 1970s it was able to produce more than one million vehicles and was 5th in Europe and 9th in the world. Then significant growth allows Spain to overtake the United Kingdom, Italy and achieve the 3 million output (for export partially), 3rd place in Europe, 6th place in the World at 2000. Since that time, due to East-European and Asian competitors on European market, auto exports from Spain have slowed and annual production decreased to 2.4 million, although Spain beat France and became the second auto power in Europe (after Germany) but 9th in the world. In 2009, the automotive industry generated 3.5 percent of the country's
GDP and gave employment to about nine percent of the working population.
Spain is in eighth place in car manufacturing countries, but 2008 and 2009 showed a decrease in car production. The downward spiral started about ten years ago, with an abandoning policy of many consecutive governments. The result has been the loss of all Spanish car brands manufacturers, which are now in hands of foreign companies. Nowadays, Spain's major domestic firm is the
Volkswagen Group's subsidiary brand
SEAT, S.A.
Sweden Combi in Sweden
Swedish automobile manufacturing is widely known in European and US markets due to advanced and safe cars including
Saab and
Volvo brands, although their production (150–200 thousand per year) is not among the largest in Europe and the world.
Turkey Recently fast growing with European and then Japanese and South Korean help, the automotive industry in
Turkey plays an important role in the manufacturing sector of the Turkish economy. The foundations of the industry was laid with the establishment of
Otosan assembly factory in 1959 and the mass production of the domestic car
Anadol in 1961. Last years Turkey produced up to 1.2 million motor vehicles, ranking as the 7th in Europe and the 16th-17th largest producer in the World. With a cluster of car-makers and parts suppliers, the Turkish automotive sector has become an integral part of the global network of production bases, exporting over $22,944,000,000 worth of motor vehicles and components in 2008. Global car manufacturers with production plants include
Mercedes-Benz,
Fiat/
Tofaş,
Oyak-Renault,
Hyundai,
Toyota,
Honda and
Ford/
Otosan. Turkey's national automotive brand
TOGG also started production in 2022.
Ukraine Ukraine was one of two only Soviet republics having production of all types of automobiles and was second by volume in the automotive industry of the Soviet Union with more than 200,000 annual production. Ukraine automobile manufacturers produces 100–200 thousand per year now and includes
UkrAvto (
ZAZ,
MeMZ),
Bogdan (
Bogdan Motors),
KrAZ,
KrASZ,
BAZ,
ChAZ,
Electron,
Eurocar,
Etalon-Avto,
HalAZ,
Anto-Rus and
LAZ. While domestic trucks, buses and trolleybuses continues to be made, production of self-designed cars (such as
ZAZ Tavria) decreased and now Ukraine assembles mainly
Europe-,
China- and
South Korea-developed cars.
United Kingdom in Geneva MotorShow in 2012 The automotive industry in the United Kingdom is now best known for premium and sports car marquees including
Aston Martin,
Bentley,
Daimler,
Jaguar,
Lagonda,
Land Rover,
Lotus,
McLaren,
MG,
Mini,
Morgan and
Rolls-Royce. Volume car manufacturers with a major presence in the UK include
Ford (only produces engines and gearboxes in Britain having ended passenger car production in 2002 and commercial vehicle production in 2013),
Honda,
Nissan,
Toyota and
Vauxhall Motors (owned by
Stellantis). Commercial vehicle manufacturers active in the UK include
Alexander Dennis, Ford,
IBC Vehicles (owned by Stellantis),
Leyland Trucks (owned by
Paccar) and
London Taxis International. The origins of the UK automotive industry date back to the final years of the 19th century. By the 1950s the UK was the second-largest manufacturer of cars in the world (after the
United States) and the largest exporter. However, in subsequent decades the industry experienced considerably lower growth than competitor nations such as
France,
Germany and
Japan and by 2008 the UK was the 12th-largest producer of cars measured by volume. Since the late 1980s many British car marques have become owned by foreign companies including
BMW,
SAIC,
TATA and
Volkswagen Group. Rights to many currently dormant brands, including
Austin,
Riley,
Rover and
Triumph, are also owned by foreign companies. == North America ==