VW has closed, for the first time, a factory in China, held in partnership with the Chinese company SAIC, a unit that has been producing automobiles for 17 years and has the capacity to produce 360,000 vehicles per year.
The news of the closure of this production unit was reported by a German newspaper and later confirmed by VW, which did not specify when the closure will take place. However, the German business newspaper, “Handelsblatt”, indicates that the factory closure will be carried out gradually over the last semester of the year.
“We can confirm that the SAIC VW factory in Nanjing has ceased production”, VW confirmed in a statement sent to “Reuters”. “Many SAIC VW units are being converted or have already been converted for electric vehicle production.”
The closure of the factory of the joint venture between SAIC and VW had been anticipated for some time. Last September, it was revealed that the closure would take place this year due to the decline in local sales of combustion engine vehicles. The production unit in Nanjing produced the VW Passat and the Skoda Superb.
The production of the two models will now be transferred to the Yizheng unit; however, it has not yet been revealed how many of the 2,500 employees at the Nanjing factory may be transferred to the new factory.
It should be noted that VW employs over 90,000 people in China and operates 39 production units. However, utilization rates in many of the factories have fallen significantly since Covid-19.
