VW plant in Emden
So far, the Passat still runs in Lower Saxony from the band.
Berlin The plans of the VolkswagenGroup for its new Eastern European work are becoming ever more concrete. “We are in final talks with Turkey,” said VWBrand production board Andreas Tostmann on Thursday in Berlin to reporters. He reckons that you will finish in about two weeks – “maybe even sooner”. It is currently about the “final contract design” and about making the agreement ready for signing. When asked whether to negotiate with other partners, Tostmann said only that one currently focuses on the finalization with the Turkey have.
According to insiders, a landmark decision to build the plant has cost more than a billion euros in Turkey. The new multi-brand factory with a planned annual capacity of up to 300,000 vehicles and around 4,000 employees is to be built in Manisa near Izmir in western Anatolia. According to this, construction is scheduled to begin at the end of 2020, with production scheduled to begin in 2022.
Previously, Volkswagen had been negotiating with the authorities for months on the conditions for the location. As an alternative, Bulgaria had applied. In the new plant, the VW Passat and the identical Skoda Overall, car production at Volkswagen’s core brand has become significantly more efficient since the launch of a new strategy a year ago. In 2019, productivity will increase by more than six percent, said VW production chief Tostmann. This year could save about 500 million euros in costs and improve the result. The cost per vehicle would also decrease for the first time since 2013.
Greater profitability of the VW Passenger Cars brand is one of the main goals of CEO Herbert Diess. One year ago, Tostmann had set itself the goal of increasing productivity on average across all locations by a total of 30 percent by 2025. The Wolfsburg keep that tight. The background to the measures is, for example, the high level of investment required by the transition to e-mobility and automated driving. The number of equipment and model variants is also expected to decline.
VW plans an electric offensive for the German plants. After Zwickau, the Emden location is to become Volkswagen’s next pure electric car plant. Tostmann, affirmed planned investments of “about one billion euros” in Emden. The factory in Ostfriesland, where the Passat was previously manufactured, should, like the Zwickau plant, be completely converted to models of the Modular Electrical Construction Kit (MEB).
“This decision has now essentially been made,” Tostmann reported. The successor of the Passat will be settled elsewhere – this is a possible work in Turkey in conversation. “Emden has a good perspective as a transformation work,” said the manager. Models with combustion engines would not be planned there anymore.