Audio clip
Frank Fischer
A Chinese group in October will travel to Chattanooga to check out Volkswagen’s plant, which will serve as the model for factories the automaker is building in that vast market, officials said.
Also, the platform for the new midsize sedan VW will make in Chattanooga is to be used for a car planned for China, according to the German automaker.
Frank Fischer, chief executive of VW’s Chattanooga operations, said the company is building two plants in China and planning two more to keep up with demand.
“The layout of the Chattanooga plant will be the blueprint for the Chinese plants,” he said. “This shows how far advanced we are with our program.”
China is one of VW’s most important markets.
Volkswagen AG chief Martin Winterkorn, during a visit to Chattanooga a few weeks ago, cited China along with Europe and the United States as important to VW’s future.
VW delivered more than 950,000 vehicles in the first half of the year in China, up 47.7 percent over a year ago, according to the company.
Guenther Scherelis, general manager of communication for VW in Chattanooga, said the delegation will include members of its joint venture partners in China — Shanghai Volkswagen and FAW-VW Automobile Co.
“We’re putting up the benchmark factory and the processes we invent or use will become standard,” he said. “The platform (for the new midsize sedan) will be used to make a sedan in China as well.”
Analyst Jeannine Fallon of the auto website Edmunds.com said reusing platforms is a cost effective way of doing business.
“If you can reuse research and development and buy from suppliers, there’s a lot of efficiencies,” she said.
Also, Fallon said developing markets such as China are critical for car companies, especially with the steep downturn in auto sales worldwide over the past couple of years.
“The developing markets represent the growth opportunity for the automakers,” she said.
J.Ed. Marston, the Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce’s vice president of marketing, said Hamilton County has garnered about $1.5 billion in foreign investment the past year or so.
While that has come primarily from Europe, the city welcomes partnerships with other parts of the world, including China, he said.
VW’s $1 billion auto assembly plant in Chattanooga is to start production early next year.
It’s aimed at helping VW to triple U.S. sales to 1 million vehicles by 2018.
Mike Pare, the deputy Business editor at the Chattanooga Times Free Press, has worked at the paper for 27 years. In addition to editing, Mike also writes Business stories and covers Volkswagen, economic development and manufacturing in Chattanooga and the surrounding area. In the past he also has covered higher education. Mike, a native of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., received a bachelor’s degree in communications from Florida Atlantic University. he worked at the Rome News-Tribune before ...
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