Volkswagen Compact SUV to be built in Portugal

Press Release

At its meeting today, the Brand Product Strategy Committee of Volkswagen AG recommended that the compact SUV should be built at the Palmela plant in Portugal from 2007.

 

This recommendation was issued in view of the competitive situation and the scheduling framework for production start-up of the compact SUV. From the present perspective, production in Portugal brings cost benefits of over 1000 Euro per vehicle compared with production in Wolfsburg, the alternative facility. Given the tough competitive situation in this vehicle segment, extra costs on this scale are not acceptable. Under present conditions, production of the compact SUV at the Wolfsburg site would therefore not be economic.

 

There is one remaining alternative for Wolfsburg as regards production of the compact SUV. This would involve integration of the vehicle in Touran production, i.e. production by Auto 5000 GmbH.

"The window for a decision on this alternative also closes on 26 September", commented Dr. Wolfgang Bernhard, Chairman of the Volkswagen brand Board of Management. "That is the deadline for plant and machinery specifications for the production site in order to guarantee on-time production start-up."