The assembly line at the Kia plant in Zilina, Slovakia, in October.
Photographer: Akos Stiller/BloombergEurope’s Detroit Is Under Threat From Electric Vehicles
The Czechs and Slovaks make more cars per capita than anywhere else in the world. Now, the transition to EVs is putting a vast supply chain in jeopardy.
With its 19th-century architecture and communist-era concrete, Dolny Kubin is typical of central Europe and its past. The town in northern Slovakia is also emblematic of something more ominous for the future.
Over the past three decades, Dolny Kubin became home to investors such as Austrian auto parts maker Miba AG as the former Czechoslovakia went from being a relic of the old Eastern bloc to one of the world’s biggest car producers.