Volkswagen Slovakia produces nearly 400,000 cars in 2014

Volkswagen Slovakia manufactured a total of 394,474 automobiles in 2014, which more or less equals the level seen in 2013, the company's head Albrecht Reimold told a press conference here Monday.
According to Albrecht, 48 percent of the vehicles were SUV models, while the rest were city cars. A total of 285,000 gearboxes were manufactured at the company's plant in Bratislava.
Volkswagen Slovakia last year invested 232.9 million euros (about 244 million U.S. dollars), mainly towards the setting up of a new bodywork shop. The company's exports stood at 6.1 billion euros, with the firm exporting 99.7 percent of the produced cars.
Germany was the most important market. A total of 33.7 percent of cars produced for export were shipped to that country. Next was China (17.5 percent) and the United States (11.5 percent).
In terms of prospects for 2015, Reimolds observed that the production of new Audi Q7 e-tron models would be launched this year and that the Bratislava-based plant would become the company's first plant to manufacture a diesel plug-in hybrid automobile.