The Peugeot 2008 is proving to be a commercial success, so much so that the carmaker announced a new production increase at the Mulhouse plant in France.
Peugeot recently built the 100,000th 2008 crossover, but as it has orders for a further 20,000 units, the company decided to further increase production to around 860 vehicles a day. This new increase in output will require the organization of a half night shift at the plant.
However, Peugeot will not hire new employees, as the new half night shift will be filled internally with employees that are currently working on another half shift building the Citroën C4 and DS4. That half shift will be terminated as of July 21.
The Peugeot 2008 is produced exclusively at the Mulhouse plant for global markets except China and Latin America. The model was awarded the “Guaranteed French Origin” label in September 2013, as 73 percent of its components are produced in France.
In a separate announcement, Peugeot said it would hire approximately 50 temporary employees in two shifts at the Valenciennes mechanical components plant to build the AL4 automatic transmission. Due to strong demand from China, the plant will produce an additional 5,500 AL4 automatic transmissions from April to June 2014.
The two shifts, a permanent night shift and a weekend shift, will increase daily output of the AL4 automatic transmission from the current 1,300 units to 1,600 in April, 1,800 in May and nearly 1,900 in June. The plant exports more than 70 percent of its total automatic transmission output to Chinese customers.
By Dan Mihalascu
PHOTO GALLERY
