The remaining part was the Ceed model line. The most produced was the classic five-door body version of this model, closely followed by the XCeed crossover. The electrified Ceed Sportswagon PHEV and XCeed PHEV accounted for almost 8% and the mild hybrid versions of the Sportage and Ceed accounted for 11.9% of all vehicles produced.
"We have the challenging year of 2020 behind us. Despite all the difficulties and pitfalls, we managed to produce 268,200 vehicles and almost 275,000 engines. I am very happy that new products such as the XCeed crossover and electrified plug-in hybrid models have found their fans. Customers appreciate the high quality and reliability of cars manufactured in Kia Motors Slovakia. I believe that the overall situation will improve in 2021, we will continue to invest in order to improve our competitiveness," said Seok Bong Kim, President of Kia Motors Slovakia.
Due to the pandemic, 2020 was a period of local and global crisis situations that negatively affected production at the plant. The management of the company together with the newly elected committee of the trade union ZO OZ KOVO Kia agreed to cooperate in overcoming the difficult situations in 2021 and improving competitiveness on the European market.
The joint declaration was signed by Martin Čech, chairman of the trade union ZO OZ KOVO Kia, and Dušan Dvořák, head of the Employee Relations Department. Both sides are convinced that mutual trust and active cooperation together with flexible production operations are the basis for successfully overcoming rapid changes in the automotive industry.
Peaceful dialogue and cooperation will focus mainly on stabilizing employment, the safety of the working environment, maintaining competitiveness, and the successful transformation of the plant while meeting environmental standards or implementing Industry 4.0.
Investments and modifications of production lines were also implemented in 2020 in several production halls. During the regular winter shutdown, thanks to the installation of robots, the automation at the paint shop increased and the lines at the welding shop were modified. The main goal of the investment was to increase competitiveness, modernize the production process, reduce costs and increase production efficiency.
During four months, a long-term planned modification of the lines took place at Motor Plant 2. It was an investment in the amount of more than 70 million euros, thanks to which Kia Motors Slovakia has been producing new generation petrol generators since the autumn of 2020.
In 2020, Kia Motors Slovakia produced a total of almost 275,000 engines. Compared to 2019, the decrease in the production of powertrains represented almost 37%. The share of gasoline engines that customers increasingly like in Kia models was 57%. Almost half of the produced drive units were used in cars manufactured in Teplička nad Váhom. About 42% of the engines produced went to the sister plant Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Czech. The remaining units were exported to sister plants in Turkey and India.
Kia Motors Slovakia has not seen any significant changes among the countries where it exports its cars the most. Most often last year, vehicles went to the United Kingdom, followed by Germany, Russia, Spain, and Poland. Turkey also reached the ranking of the ten largest export countries, where two and a half times more cars were exported than in the previous year. Less than 5,000 Sportage and Ceed cars remained on the domestic Slovak market.
Despite the global pandemic, European sales of the Ceed model family increased by 4.1% to 114,759 units in 2020. Ceed became Kia's best-selling model in Europe last year. Increased interest in the Ceed family of models follows the successful introduction of new plug-in hybrid variants of the Ceed Sportswagon and XCeed models. The still popular SUV Sportage and the second model manufactured by Kia Motors Slovakia maintain the position of the third best-selling Kia model in Europe.
Source:// Systémy logistiky
