1st ICAI 2020

International Conference on Automotive Industry 2020

Mladá Boleslav, Czech Republic

Czechia’s GDP, more than a fifth of its exports, and a quarter of its industrial output, was contributing more than a third of investment into research and development in the manufacturing industry, and was directly employing nearly 170,000 people – and indirectly, no less than 500,000) is the best source of current published data on the automobile industry from the standpoint of production, registrations, and exports of passenger cars in Czechia. AIA covers almost the whole of the automotive sector with 145 members in Czechia. The number of persons employed by AIA members is about 133,000 people. Against this background, there are differences in published data on employment and added value from AIA and CZSO. AIA associates the manufacturing, commercial and other companies which make up the Czech automotive and allied industries and obtains its data from them. It publishes cumulative data on production and sales of motor vehicles (with a special category for passenger cars) on a monthly basis from the beginning of each calendar year, with about a month’s lag time. Thus, an overview of the production of motor vehicles (in various categories) for January 2020 was available in February 2020. Such regular monthly overviews are very important for following the most recent developments and international changes. They help to shed light on current conditions in the automotive industry and to understand the reasons for them. The AIA is a member of the European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA). The ACEA publishes data on new registrations of automobiles in Czechia as does the AIA.

Figure 1: New Registrations, Exports and Production of Passenger Cars in Czechia

Source: Automotive Industry Association (AIA); Export – worldwide sales of vehicles (except Czechia); includes sales of vehicles of produced abroad – from 2017 figures are only for cars produced in Czechia. The number of new car registrations in the entire EUwas influenced by the introduction (on September 1, 2018) of a new European standard, the Worldwide Harmonised Light Vehicle Test Procedure (WLTP) for measuring the fuel consumption of vehicles with spark-ignition, compression-ignition, electric and hybrid motors. WLTP replaced the former New European Drive Cycle (NEDC) standard. As a result, there was a significant year on year increase in the registrations of new automobiles, because car manufacturers had to deal with outstanding stock and sell it before introduction of the

159