Daimler

Koper – AK Automotive, a Turkish-owned company, to expand production and has recently purchased a production facility in Koper it used to lease from Cimos. It plans to invest more than EUR 20 million in the location within a year.

AK Automotive was set up in 2018 by Kücükoglu Holding, which acquired Cimos’s kinematics business the same year.

Slovenj Gradec – The US multinational Adient today explained its decision to close down its Slovenj Gradec affiliate by saying that “internal assessments and discussions with key clients have shown that Slovenia is no longer considered a best cost country”.

Over the past decade, around 70 million passenger cars have been manufactured worldwide each year. According to detailed information from analysts at statista.com, in 2018, a total of 70,466,000 passenger cars were manufactured in the world.

Electric vehicles in Europe will increase dramatically in the coming years. 214 electric vehicle models will be available in the European markets in 2021, up from about 60 in 2018. It is expected that by 2025 there will be over 330 available electric vehicle models .

A key supplier for Mercedes, which last year announced its investment in a headlamp factory in Bulgaria, officially opened a development center in Sofia. The subsidiary of the group was in our country - "Odelo Farba" - will work on projects for rear lights of cars in the office in the capital and the finished products will be in mass production 2 years after the initial design phase.

New car sales in Bulgaria increased by 10.1% on annual base to 3641 in May. This shows data from the Association of European Automobile Manufacturers (ACEA).

In the period January - May, the registration of new cars in our country increased by 3.9% yearly to 15 068 units from 14 496 for the same period in 2018.

German cable systems manufacturer Leoni warned that it would not reach its profit target set just a month ago. In addition, the company plans to cut 2,000 people. "The company faces a challenging environment in the markets, especially in China," Leoni said, adding that orders from car manufacturers dropped significantly.

The Visteon Bulgarian Development Center boasts a new success. Daimler, the Mercedes-Benz manufacturer, today introduced its new Actros truck with revolutionary technology developed in Sofia.

The presentation comes a few months after the launch of the new A-Classe with the MBUX system, which was also developed by Bulgarian engineers.

FRANKFURT/BUDAPEST: BMW will invest 1 billion euros (US$1.17 bln) to build a new plant in Hungary at a time when a rise in protectionism is forcing carmakers to curb inter-continental exports and to refocus production networks to serve regional trading blocs.

German authorities are giving automaker Daimler until mid-June to submit a plan for how it will fix diesel-powered vans that don't meet emissions requirements.