Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA), the Italian-American carmaker, has announced a major investment in its plant in Tychy, a city in southern Poland, to begin producing new hybrid and electric models.
“Modern, hybrid and electric cars of the Jeep, Fiat and Alfa Romeo brands will start to leave the factory in Tychy in 2022,” Poland’s deputy prime minister, Jarosław Gowin, tweeted on Tuesday afternoon.
He valued the investment at 755 million zloty (€166 million), having deleted an earlier tweet citing a figure of €2 billion.
Nowoczesne, hybrydowe i elektryczne samochody marek Jeep, Fiat i Alfa Romeo już w 2022 zaczną wyjeżdżać z fabryki w Tychach. Inwestycja warta 755 mln zł z perspektywą wielokrotnego zwiększenia nakładów to koronny dowód zaufania rynków do Polski.
— Jarosław Gowin (@Jaroslaw_Gowin) December 29, 2020
Fiat Chrysler’s car plant in Tychy, which spans 2.4 million square metres, is one of the company’s largest. It currently employs around 2,500 people, reports Reuters.
The planned expansion and modernisation may take several years to fully complete, but Fiat Chrysler hopes to begin production of the new car models in the second half of 2022. They will be “technologically advanced models based on a new concept of mobility,” says the company.
“For the 100th anniversary of Fiat’s presence in Poland, it will expand and modernise its factory in Tychy as part of the special Katowice Economic Zone,” wrote Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, on Facebook, referring to the founding of Polska Fiat in 1920.
The automotive industry accounts for roughly 11% of Poland’s industrial production, according to 2018 figures from the Polish Investment and Trade Agency (PAiH).
The country produces roughly 450,000 passenger cars, 200,000 vans and trucks, and almost 6,000 buses annually, with other significant producers including Volkswagen, PSA Group, Volvo and Scania AB.
Last year, Toyota announced that it would invest €140 million to expand output at its plant in Walbrzych, the firm’s only hybrid vehicle production and development facility outside Japan.
The Polish government has also expressed hopes that Poland will soon begin production of its own electric car brand, Izera, prototypes of which were unveiled in July.
Earlier this month, ElectroMobility Poland, the state-owned company behind the Izera venture, announced that it will begin construction of its first electric car plant next year in Jaworzno, in the southern industrial region of Silesia. The 2 billion zloty (€441 million) factory is then due to begin production in 2024.
“New production possibilities based on the most modern technology mean that fully electric and hybrid cars will appear in Poland. We are attracting investment even in a time of crisis,” says Morawiecki.
Fiat Chrysler is expected to become the fourth largest car-maker in the world after it merges with its French rival PSA, which produces Peugeot and Citroën.
Main image credit: Fiat Chrysler Automobiles PL/Facebook
Note: this article was updated to take account of the lower value of investment cited in Jarosław Gowin’s second tweet.
Maria Wilczek is deputy editor of Notes from Poland. She is a regular writer for The Times, The Economist and Al Jazeera English, and has also featured in Foreign Policy, Politico Europe, The Spectator and Gazeta Wyborcza.
