Hungarian production of passenger cars has exceeded Polish production
- Formerly producing country of engines, Hungary began the assembly of cars in 1991 with the establishment of the Japanese carmaker Suzuki. Over the following years, German premium carmakers Audi and then Mercedes began automobile production in this country, relocating part of their production from Germany to Hungary. BMW is also building a factory there. And the Chinese BYD, one of the largest producers of battery electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles in the world, recently announced that it would build an assembly plant there.
- Hungarian automobile industry is therefore on the rise and has replaced Poland regarding the setting up of factories for passenger car.
- Today, Hungarian automobile production has managed to supplant Polish production in terms of volume, as in 2023, Hungary will have produced nearly 500,000 passenger cars (Audi, Mercedes, Suzuki) or twice as many as Poland (250,000 units).
- Poland is catching up with Hungary by producing light utility vehicles (around 250,000 units) while Hungary does not assemble any. The fact remains that Hungary is attracting more and more carmakers to the extent that the Czech Rep. and Slovakia were a hit at the beginning of the 2000s, attracting several large automobile carmakers to them, but are now experiencing saturation in terms of factory locations. These settlements have now moved to Hungary.