The VW Group is expanding its production capacity in China with a new vehicle plant located in Changsha, in the south of the country. Opened by the Shanghai-Volkswagen (SVW) joint venture, the new factory is the VW Group’s 119th global facility and its 20th in China.
“China is not only the Volkswagen Group’s largest and most important market; it has also become the Group’s second home market. The plant in Changsha is a key step in our Go South strategy in China. This new facility will bring us nearer to our Chinese customers and also improve the quality of our supply chain,” said Prof. Dr. Jochem Heizmann, President and CEO of Volkswagen Group China.
Located approximately 900 km (560 miles) to the west of Shanghai, the new plant in Changsha will build the Volkswagen New Lavida, as well as other models of the Volkswagen and Skoda brands. The facility has a total capacity of about 300,000 vehicles per year. More than 4,000 new jobs are being created at the plant, together with 4,000 more in the neighboring supplier park.
The Changsha plant is the first production facility of the Shanghai-Volkswagen joint venture to receive the “Triple-Star Green Building Design Award,” the highest state award for environmentally compatible factory design. The plant features a dry painting system (“E-scrub”), thanks to which water and energy consumption will be reduced by more than 20 percent. Furthermore, fresh water consumption in production has been reduced by 20 percent compared by using rainwater and recycled production water.
In 2014, Volkswagen and its two joint ventures FAW-Volkswagen and Shanghai-Volkswagen delivered a total of about 3.7 million vehicles to customers in China, accounting for an increase of 12.4 percent over the previous year. Together with its partners, the Volkswagen Group has pledged to invest more than €22 billion ($24 billion) in China by 2019.
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