Automotive FDI in emering Europe: Shifting locales in the moter vehicles industry

Automotive FDI in Emerging

Europe

A. J. Jacobs

Automotive FDI

in Emerging Europe

Shifting Locales in the Motor Vehicle Industry

A. J. Jacobs

Department of Sociology

East Carolina University

Greenville, North Carolina, USA

ISBN 978-1-137-40781-8 ISBN 978-1-137-40786-3 (eBook)

DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-40786-3

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017937902

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017

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The registered company address is: The Campus, 4 Crinan Street, London, N1 9XW, United Kingdom

This book is dedicated to Dr. Petr Pavlinek, whose scholarly

publications on the auto industry in Post-Socialist Europe and

dedication to excellence have inspired my own research.

Contents

1 Introduction and Overview 1

2 Two Blocs to One Market: The Shift East of Auto

Production in Post-Socialist Europe 11

3 Foreign Passenger Car Plants in Poland 35

4 Passenger Car Plants Before and After the Former

East Germany 103

5 Foreign Carmakers in Czechia 147

6 Foreign Automakers in Independent Slovakia 191

7 Foreign Car Plants in Hungary 235

8 The Next Ring:The Emerging Southeast

Europe Auto Zone 279

9 Conclusions and Future Auto FDI Prospects for CE

and SEE Nations 319

Index 351

vii

List of Tables

Table 1.1 Active and planned foreign car plants in the CE

and SEE, 2016 3

Table 2.1 Passenger car production in CE and SEE, 1950–1989 16

Table 2.2 Foreign passenger car plant takeovers and launches

in CE and SEE, 1989–2000 20

Table 2.3 Passenger car production in three areas of Europe,

1989–2001 23

Table 2.4 Foreign passenger car plants launched or planned

in the CE and SEE, 2001–2016 26

Table 2.5 Passenger car production in three areas of Europe,

2001–2015 28

Table 3.1 Active and former foreign car plants in Poland 41

Table 3.2 UkrAVTO-GM car production at FSO Zeran,

2008–2012 64

Table 3.3 FCA Tychy light vehicle production, 2009–2015 70

Table 3.4 VW Poznan light vehicle production, 2009–2015 78

Table 3.5 Opel Gliwice car production, 2009–2015 87

Table 3.6 Foreign car production in Poland, 1989–2015 90

Table 4.1 Active and former car plants in the former East Germany 111

Table 4.2 VW Zwickau (Mosel) car production, 2009–2015 116

Table 4.3 VW Dresden car production, 2009–2015 119

Table 4.4 Porsche Leipzig car production, 2009–2015 123

Table 4.5 Opel Eisenach car production, 2009–2015 134

ix

Table 4.6 BMW Leipzig car production, 2009–2015 135

Table 4.7 Car production in the former East Germany, 1989–2015 140

Table 5.1 Foreign car plants in Czechia 148

Table 5.2 Skoda light vehicles production in Czechia, 2009–2015 171

Table 5.3 TPCA Kolin car production, 2009–2015 174

Table 5.4 Hyundai Nosovice car production, 2009–2015 179

Table 5.5 Foreign car production in Czechia, 1989–2015 183

Table 6.1 Foreign car plants in Slovakia 196

Table 6.2 VW Bratislava car production, 2009–2015 203

Table 6.3 PSA Trnava car production, 2009–2015 208

Table 6.4 Kia Zilina car production, 2009–2015 219

Table 6.5 Foreign car production in Slovakia, 1989–2015 226

Table 7.1 Active and former foreign car plants in Hungary 243

Table 7.2 Suzuki Esztergom Car Production, 2009–2015 256

Table 7.3 Audi Hungary car production, 2009–2015 263

Table 7.4 Mercedes-Benz Kecskemet car production, 2012–2015 267

Table 7.5 Foreign car production in Hungary, 1989–2015 270

Table 8.1 Foreign passenger car plants in SEE Auto Zone 281

Table 8.2 Car production in the SEE Auto Zone, 1989–2015 283

Table 8.3 SEE Auto Zone car production by Plant, 2009–2015 288

Table 9.1 Comparing labor in Central, Southeast, and Western

Europe, 2015 321

Table 9.2 CE and SEE labor, accessibility, and government

attractiveness for car plants 324

Table 9.3 CE and SEE near-term prospects for new car plants

and expansion 327

x List of Tables

1

Introduction and Overview

In the first ten years following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989,

Western automakers commenced passenger car production at 16 sites

in the former Socialist Central European (CE) nations of

Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia.

Four more were taken over in the former Socialist Southeast Europe

(SEE) nations of Romania and Yugoslavia. Passenger cars were defined

here as cars, sport and crossover utility vehicles (SUV or CUV), multi￾purpose vehicles/microvans (MPVs), minivans/vans, and light pickup

trucks utilized for private transportation and not commercial

purposes.

The first sooners, Fiat (now FCA) and General Motors (GM) in

Poland, Suzuki in Hungary, and Volkswagen (VW) in East Germany

and Czechoslovakia, originally established joint ventures with state-run

organizations. Whereas the labor savings accrued by building cars

bound for Western Europe in CE grew more important over time,

inflated projections of new cars sales in the Eastern Bloc and gaining

duty-free entry to these markets were the most decisive factors provok￾ing the establishment of most early plants. In fact, 13 of the 20 plants

launched in CE and SEE by 2000 were officially announced before

© The Author(s) 2017

A.J. Jacobs, Automotive FDI in Emerging Europe,

DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-40786-3_1

1

November 1, 1993, the day when the Treaty of Maastricht making the

European Union (EU) a reality came into effect (See Chapter 2).

The success of these initial factories attracted scores of foreign com￾ponents suppliers to these areas, and then more foreign car plants. This

second wave of car factories was motivated by the growing influence of

other forces. Most important among them was the impending major

enlargement of the EU on May 1, 2004 which incorporated all four CE

nations into the single market. This enabled foreign automakers to truly

take advantage of the CE’s strategic geographic proximity to Western

European markets and their relatively inexpensive, yet sufficiently skilled

labor forces. CE governments also became more involved, competing

aggressively for these plants by adopting extensive foreign direct invest￾ment (FDI) focused incentive programs and then offering larger and

larger subsidy packages to lure foreign carmakers. In sum, the situation

went from automakers chasing markets to firms chasing cost-cutting

labor and States chasing automakers.

As a result of this new environment, ten more foreign car assembly

complexes were announced in CE and SEE between 2001 and 2016,

and many of the first wave of 20 plants were expanded significantly.

Conversely, three facilities from the initial group were closed by 2012

and four others ended car output to concentrate on other activities. As a

result, as detailed in Table 1.1, there currently were 22 active foreign car

plants and one under construction in CE and SEE in 2016. Among the

active plants, 18 and the one in progress were in CE and four in SEE.

The CE plants included: four in Czechia; three in Slovakia, with a

fourth in Slovakia underway (Czechoslovakia split in 1993); three in

Hungary; three in Poland; and five in the former East Germany (East

and West Germany unified in 1989). The four in SEE included: two in

Romania; and one each in the former Yugoslav republics of Serbia and

Slovenia. None of these 22 factories were controlled by firms originally

based in Eastern Bloc nations.

Overall, the active 22 plants collectively had the capacity to produce

more than 6.2 million light vehicles per year and employed 123,171

persons in 2015. Slightly more than 5.0 million of this available vehicle

capacity and 101,783 of these workers were located in CE factories.

Finally, these complexes assembled more than 4.7 million passenger cars

2 1 Introduction and Overview

Table 1.1 Active and planned foreign car plants in the CE and SEE, 2016

Automaker

Company

origin Place, CE nation Announced

Production

launched

Emp.

31 Dec,

2015

Passenger

car output

2015

Vehicle

capacity

2016

Total 123,171 4,732,545 6,207,000

CE 101,783 4,124,074 5,047,000

SEE 21,388 608,471 1,160,000

1. FCA Italy Tychy, Poland Sep-1987 Jun-1991 3,270 302,639 600,000

2. Renault Revoz France Novo Mesto, Slovenia Jun-1988 Dec-1989 3,178 129,405 210,000

3. VW Germanya Zwickau, Germanyb Dec-1989 Oct-1996 8,820 301,301 300,000

4. Suzuki Japan Esztergom, Hungary Jan-1990 Oct-1992 3,100 185,533 300,000

5. GM Opel USA Eisenach, Germanyb Mar-1990 Sep-1992 1,850 116,248 160,000

6. VW Skoda Germany Mlada Boleslav, Czechia Dec-1990 Apr-1991 21,299 537,621 600,000

7. VW Skoda Germany Kvasiny, Czechia Dec-1990 Apr-1991 3,374 142,286 180,000

8. VW Germany Bratislava, Slovakia Mar-1991 Dec-1991 9,762 358,776 400,000

9. VWc Germany Poznan, Poland May-1993 Jul-1994 7,765 62,656 175,000

10. GM Opel USA Gliwice, Poland Dec-1995 Aug-1998 2,890 169,405 207,000

11. Audi Germany Gyor, Hungary May-1996 Apr-1998 11,411 160,206 160,000

12. VW Germany Dresden, Germanyb Jun-1998 Dec-2001 525 3,254 10,000

13. Renault Dacia France Mioveni, Romania Jul-1999 Sep-1999 11,108 339,204 450,000

14. Porsche Germany Leipzig, Germanyb Sep-1999 Aug-2002 3,667 164,968 165,000

15. BMW Germany Leipzig, Germanyb Jul-2001 Mar-2005 6,000 233,656 240,000

(continued )

Table 1.1 (continued)

Automaker

Company

origin Place, CE nation Announced

Production

launched

Emp.

31 Dec,

2015

Passenger

car output

2015

Vehicle

capacity

2016

16. Toyota￾Peugeot Japan-France Ovcary-Kolin, Czechia Dec-2001 Feb-2005 3,464 219,054 300,000

17. PSA France Trnava, Slovakia Jan-2004 Jun-2006 3,500 303,025 360,000

18. Kia S. Korea Teplicka nad Vahom,

Slovakia

Mar-2004 Dec-2006 3,646 338,200 360,000

19. Hyundai S. Korea Nosovice, Czechia Sep-2005 Nov-2008 3,440 342,200 350,000

20. Ford USA Craiova, Romania Sep-2007 Sep-2009 4,002 47,967 300,000

21. FCA Italy Kragujevac, Serbia Apr-2008 Mar-2009 3,100 91,895 200,000

22. Mercedes-Benz Germany Kecskemet, Hungary-Plant 1 Jun-2008 Mar-2012 4,000 183,046 180,000

— Mercedes-Benz Germany Kecskemet, Hungary-Plant-2 Jul-2016 Mar-2012 ~2,500 NA ~150,000

23. JLR India Nitra, Slovakia Aug-2015 Late-2018 ~2,800 NA ~300,000

Sources: Compiled and adapted by the author from Tables 3.1 to 8.3 of this book.

a All German automakers were based in the former West Germany.

b All five plants listed in Germany were located in the former East Germany.

c Also produced 108,144 LCV in 2015.

in 2015, of which CE produced 4.1 million. By comparison, CE and

SEE plants assembled 1.7 million cars in 2001 and slightly less than 1.1

million in 1989. Including East Germany, CE facilities built 1.5 million

of these cars in 2001 and 702,819 in 1989.

As output in CE and SEE expanded after 2001, many of these same

automakers, with the exception of the Japanese and Korean firms,

mothballed and/or downsized one or more of their existing plants in

Western European. France, Belgium, and Italy were hit hardest, but

even the former West Germany was not immune to such actions. The

result was that after declining slightly from 14.9 million in 1989 to 14.8

million in 2001, total car production in Western Europe’s ten largest

producing nation fell to 11.8 million in 2015. In other words, as annual

car output in CE increased by 2.6 million in 2015 as compared with

2001 and 3.0 million including SEE, it contracted by 3.1 million or

one-fifth in Western Europe during this frame. Chapter 2 supplies more

details on this shift.

Overall, in the eight chapters following this introduction, this book

seeks to provide the first relatively in-depth historical overview of the

development of foreign car plants in all four current Post-Socialist CE

nations, plus the often ignored East Germany. In doing so, it also sheds

light some of the factors driving the growing shift in European car

production eastward. To accomplish this, separate chapters are dedicated

to each CE nation’s foreign car production histories. A bonus chapter then

chronicles the much smaller scale activities in the next ring of European car

production, the SEE Auto Zone, an area encompassing Romania, Serbia,

and Slovenia. These six nation chapters are bookended by one chapter that

provides some basic background data as a foundation for these historical

developments, and a conclusion that speculating on the near-term pro￾spects for car production in CE and SEE (next five to ten years).

What is presented then represents a fairly detailed account of initial

factory announcements, production launches, vehicle output, and other

relevant facts for every known foreign car plant operated in the CE. This

includes a plethora of data tables and histories tracing the origins of these

facilities back to their inceptions. What also is unique is that almost all of

the production data presented was directly obtained from the automakers

themselves, rather than from third party sources. I achieved this through

Introduction and Overview 5

correspondences with more than 20 corporate representatives, who gra￾ciously responded to email inquiries by providing me with spreadsheets,

pdf files, and links to production figures and other plant information.

These contacts were complemented by interactions with quasi-government

organizations, such as Investment Promotion Agencies and automobile

manufacturing associations, which helped fill in gaps.

Next, my own actual site visits and factory tours served as critical

sources of information. During this field work, I took copious notes of

my surroundings, collected pamphlets and documents, and spoke infor￾mally with plant officials. After leaving each plant, I toured the sur￾rounding area and took notes and photographs of existing supplier

factories and infrastructure. The internet also was a fantastic source of

automaker annual reports and/or of some published by factories them￾selves (most factory reports were not published in English). Finally, each

history was enhanced by a review of scores of scholarly articles and books

and enumerable news reports from an assortment of English and non￾English publications, both local and international focused.

Some expert readers may find slight discrepancies in the production

data presented here for certain assembly plants from those published by

governments and the highly credible third-party sources, Organisation

Internationale des Constructeurs d’Automobiles (OICA) and Ward’s

Communications. One additional reason for this is that I made great efforts

to not double count output, attributing complete knockdown (CKD), semi￾knockdown (SKD), and partial knockdown (PKD) kits to only one plant,

the facility completing final assembly of the cars. National reporting agencies

often take credit for this production as their own, whether preparing the KD

kits or assembling them. This results in double counting and distortions in

final figures. Both OICA and Ward’s have made great efforts to harmonize

these figures in recent years, but noticeable data discrepancies between the

two organizations and national agencies exist before 1999, when OICA

began publishing data by manufacturer.

A few final remarks are necessary before proceeding to the forthcoming

summaries of the chapters. Although multiple cross references and connec￾tions are made throughout these chapters, much of what is presented is a

critical historical anthology, and fact checked to the ‘Nth’ degree. Critical

commentary is only sprinkled in where necessary to clarify a point and

6 1 Introduction and Overview

otherwise left to Chapter 2 and the Conclusion Chapter 9. Even these essays

are less critical than some may like. This was done to preserve the historical

narrative and significance of the rapid growth of car production in CE after

the Fall of Socialism. Lastly, the research for this book began in March 2011

and continued unabated until December 15, 2016, the day in which I

submitted the first draft to the publisher. In other words, each chapter,

instead of just this introduction, should rightly contain a citation denoting

my field work (i.e., Jacobs 2011–2016). They do not.1

Following this introduction, the book proceeds with Chapter 2,

‘From Two Blocs to One Market: The Shift East of Auto Production

in Post-Socialist Europe.’ This brief chapter sets the scene for the nation￾specific chapters by providing a short synopsis of passenger car produc￾tion in CE during the Socialist Era (1949–1989). It then provides

a chronology of foreign car plant production launches in CE and SEE

and a summary of car production data by nation for CE, SEE,

and Western Europe. These figures are broken up into two distinct

periods: 1989–2001 or Post-Socialist Phase I; and 2001–2015 or Post￾Socialist Phase II.

Once this necessary preparatory background information is provided,

Chapter 3, ‘Foreign Passenger Car Plants in Poland,’ traces the lineage of

Poland’s three current and four former foreign car plants. This complicated

saga demonstrates the initial chaos of the early Post-Socialist Period privatiza￾tion process. Whereas the active plants FCA Tychy, VW Poznan, and GM’s

Opel Gliwice all evolved within this context, Poland’s sometimes poor

decisions on which automakers to depend upon, Daewoo of Korea, resulted

in the failures of its state-run car plants in Warsaw and Lublin. The chapter

concludes by summarizing Poland’s car production data since the fall of

Socialism and by briefly discussing Toyota’s powertrain facilities (engine and

transmission) and Mercedes-Benz’s engine factory and rumored car plant in

southern Poland. Due to the sheer number of plants to be covered, this

chapter is easily the longest in the book.

Chapter 4, ‘Passenger Car Plants Before and After the Former East

Germany,’ chronicles the legacies of the five current car factories located

1 See Jacobs (2011–2016).

Introduction and Overview 7