Volkswagen Group opens new plant in Northern China

The Volkswagen Group has just strengthened their position in the SUV war in China with the opening of their new FAW-Volkswagen Tianjin Plant. Built to produce SUV models for the Volkswagen and Audi brand, the new plant significantly boosts production numbers in the region. Together with the component plant that was opened in June in the same city, both plants can efficiently build on chassis for SUV models and on a much larger scale.

The new FAW-Volkswagen Tianjin Plant is located in the Tianjin Economic-Technological Development Zone and has an estimated production capacity of 1,200 units daily, and 300,000 units yearly. The new plant is also a green factory, implementing a number of state-of-the-art sustainability measures, including emissions control and solar technologies. For example, the paint shop is the first FAW-Volkswagen plant to use a non-volatile organic compound (VOC) cleaning agent. 98% of the water in the plant is also recycled for other processes, and can save up to 300,000 tons of water annually. The FAW-Volkswagen Tianjin Plant has earned a 3-star building award, much in part to sustainable and eco-friendly technologies. The proximity of the new plant to the Volkswagen Automatic Transmission Plant in Tianjin will also reduce delivery times, lowering supply costs and CO2 emissions in the supply chain.

Touted as a “Perfect Plant” because of adhering to comprehensive construction standards, the FAW-Volkswagen Tianjin Plant also adopts an innovative visualization system across the facility’s workshops. This processes and analyzes production yield, status of manufacturing, any production issues or errors, using a factory-level approach.

We can expect FAW-Volkswagen to maintain their already huge market lead among competitors, with the likes of the Tiguan and Q family of Audi SUVs rolling off into showrooms across the region.