Hungarian automotive industry: week 1 2018 edition
Although all Hungary-based vehicle and engine production activities halted at the end of 2017 to enable OEMs to carry out their annual scheduled maintenance work, most factories already restarted production in the first week of January. Let’s recap what the first week of 2018 brought in Hungary’s automotive sector.
Manufacturers
We closed 2017 by giving a recap of Hungary’s automotive manufacturing sector: Mercedes launched development work for a giant investment project scheduled in Kecskemét for the year 2018, the Győr-based Audi plant is preparing for the production of three new models, we reported on the possible effects of Opel’s acquisition by PSA on the Szentgotthárd engine plant, and we also summarised the main events at Esztergom-based Suzuki.
Automotive plants traditionally halt production twice a year to carry out scheduled maintenance work. It was no different last year, when most manufacturers stopped production in week 51 and week 52, allowing employees to spend the holidays with their families.
Apart from Audi Hungaria, all major plants have restarted production; the Győr-based plant will relaunch manufacturing activities in the second week of January.
In 2017, the highest number of premium passenger cars in Hungary were sold by Mercedes-Benz. In total, 551 Kecskemét-built Mercedes cars were sold to Hungarian customers in 2017.
With a registration volume of 15,161 cars, Suzuki managed to exceed its 2016 results largely thanks to the success of their newly launched SUV, the Esztergom-built Vitara.
In 2017, 11,000 new cars were registered during the holiday period.
Finances
The Hungarian employees of the Küpper Group, filing for bankruptcy at the end of last year, can finally breathe a sigh of relief: Küpper Hungária has been bought by Thailand-based PCS Machine Group Holding (PCSG), avoiding liquidation at the Hungarian unit.
At the end of last year, we gave an overview of engineer salaries in 2017. Mechanical engineer students are offered education grants as high as HUF 160,000 a month, a fresh graduate can earn the double of that, while senior engineers can be paid as much as HUF 2 million per month.
The guaranteed salaries of educators, researchers and lecturers employed by state-run higher education institutions will increase by 5 percent in January. The average monthly wage of educators, researchers and lecturers amounted to HUF 409,891 in 2015 and HUF 433,758 in 2016.
Awards
Charaf Hassan, head of the Department of Automation and Applied Informatics of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Informatics at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BME), has been awarded with a doctorate by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA).
He received the title for his achievements in developing an efficient, field-specific methodology for the application of modelling languages. This language transformation method allows development tasks for various mobile devices, taking into account their individual calculation characteristics and energy use.
Hungarian success
A Hungarian-owned startup will debut its self-driving solutions at CES Las Vegas. AImotive develops sensors for self-driving vehicles. It already has test cars in operation in France and CA, USA, while its partners include noted manufacturers such as PSA Peugeot Citroën, Chinese SAIC and Volvo.
