Hungarian automotive industry: week 48
Yet another milestone at Audi Hungaria, significant wage increase at Melecs, experts fearing massive loss of jobs due to technology development. Let´s recap what week 48 brought in Hungary´s automotive sector.
Manufacturers
Volkswagen unveiled drawings of the new Arteon. The successor of the CC will probably make its debut at the Geneva Motor Show.
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The 1 millionth car has rolled off the production line at Audi Hungaria, fitted with the 30 millionth engine manufactured at the plant, a 400bhp five-cylinder TFSI unit. The jubilee car is an Audi TT RS in catalunya red.
The first model to be manufactured at the new Jaguar Land Rover plant in Nitra, Slovakia, will be the Land Rover Discovery. The plant is expected to begin operation in 2018.
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Suppliers
Győr-based supplier Melecs has introduced a 45 percent wage increase. In the last year, the company has increased its headcount by 77, which now exceeds 500 employees.
Service providers
In Germany only, the increasing popularity of e-drive systems could result in the loss of tens of thousands of jobs.
According to a professor from the University of Duisburg, trade unions are now fearing that technology development is risking as much as 250,000 jobs in the country.
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The auto industry is rapidly developing, and the requirements from the supplier and service industries are increasingly high. How is it possible to examine a cylinder head, an object with a completely arbitrary shape? We interviewed Dr. Viktor Gotthard, the COO of Facon-Vision Zrt., a Hungarian supplier of image processing systems and purpose-built machinery, to give us the answer.
After a two-year dispute, the European Commission has finally approved the German road toll on historically free autobahns, ruling out the possibility that the new law discriminates against foreigners and violates EU law.
Trend
Observing one of the most significant megatrends of the automotive industry it is clear which way development has taken, where developers, manufacturers, suppliers and service providers need to shift their focus in the future.
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By 2023, the number of electric vehicles could reach 11 million in China, Japan, USA and Europe.
The growth is further propelled by recent events such as the diesel-gate, while other factors, such as low oil prices, slow down this transition.
