VW opens Chinese ‘mega-factory’ to accelerate electric vehicles

German car company Volkswagen has opened a major new factory in China designed to strengthen its position in the Asian electric vehicle market.

VW opened the plant in Foshan, near Hong Kong, last week, which will allow the manufacturer to double production at the site from 300,000 to 600,000 cars a year.

The plant is designed to complement two other sites at Qingdao and Tianjin in China’s north-east, and will further VW’s electric vehicle strategy. Roadmap E, launched last September, will see VW invest 20 billion euros in electric vehicles and bring 80 new models to the market by 2025.

Foshan will soon produce the latest electrified vehicles and by 2020 pure battery cars will be introduced to the site’s production line. In China VW is working in joint venture with the state-owned FAW group to produce 1.5 million EVs per year by 2025, and 40 locally produced models.

“Through this mega-factory at the South China base of FAW-Volkswagen, we are fulfilling our promise to electrify China,” said Professor Jochem Heizmann, board member at VW and CEO of Volkswagen China. “Foshan is an important milestone on the way to becoming a people-centric provider of sustainable mobility.”

The plant itself is designed to be non-polluting with energy-saving production and recycling at its heart. It will be “a manufacturer of smart, sustainable mobility solutions, but a leading example of eco-friendly production methods”, according to VW.

VW has been trying to re-establish its environmental credentials after the 2015 emissions scandal. The manufacturer was found to have intentionally fitted its cars with software to make them compliant with emissions standards during testing. It has already paid out billions in fines across both the US and Europe as a result of the scandal.

Source: Volkswagen Group