Kia made more than 320,000 cars last year

The Kia Motors Slovakia car plant based in Teplička nad Váhom (near Žilina) rolled out 323,720 vehicles and produced over 493,000 engines in 2014, the plant‘s spokesman Jozef Bačé told the TASR newswire. The crossover compact Kia Sportage accounted for 55 percent of production. “The Kia cee‘d produced in three car body versions followed on 36 percent," Bačé said on January 14. Next came small family car the Kia Venga on 9 percent. When it came to export destinations, Russia was first on 18 percent, followed by the United Kingdom (13 percent), Germany (9 percent) and Spain and Italy (6 percent each). Of the engines produced, more than half were petrol engines, and more then half headed for the Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Czech car plant in the Czech Republic. Turning to the plant‘s exports to Russia, Bačé said that exports there dropped by 15 percent on the year in 2014 following a fall in demand in the latter half of 2014. This gap was made up by an increase in sales in Spain and Italy, while positive developments were also observed in Poland and Sweden.