4 April 2004 – December 2006 Kia comes to TepličkaDo Tepličky prichádza Kia

On 4 April 2004 the foundation stone of a Kia car plant was laid at Teplička nad Váhom, immediately east of the city. The company had been registered that February; building started in October 2004 and finished in December 2005, trial production ran through the summer of 2006 and series production began that December. It is still Kia's only plant in Europe, it can build around 350,000 cars a year, and it employs several thousand people. Suppliers settled around it, the motorway and the city's roads were completed to serve it, and Žilina with its surroundings became one of Slovakia's main industrial centres. The logic is exactly the same as in 1870: this is where the lines cross, so this is where things get built.Štvrtého apríla 2004 položili v Tepličke nad Váhom, hneď východne od mesta, základný kameň automobilky Kia. Spoločnosť vznikla vo februári toho roka, stavať sa začalo v októbri 2004 a skončilo v decembri 2005, v lete 2006 bežala skúšobná výroba a v decembri sa rozbehla sériová. Dodnes je to jediný závod Kie v Európe, dokáže vyrobiť okolo 350-tisíc áut ročne a zamestnáva niekoľko tisíc ľudí. Okolo neho sa usadili dodávatelia, dostavala sa diaľnica aj cesty v meste a Žilina so svojím okolím sa stala jedným z hlavných priemyselných centier Slovenska. Logika je presne tá istá ako v roku 1870: tu sa križujú trate, a preto sa tu stavia.