Volkswagen is consolidating its position in a fragile market: Russia. One of the worlds biggest markets sees some low sales because of the fragile political environment. Even so, the German manufacturer will try to establish its position by officially opening another plant.
Following three years of construction, the Volkswagen Group today inaugurated its new engine plant at Kaluga in the presence of the Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. Through the construction of the engine plant, Volkswagen is stepping up its industrial activities in Russia. A local law determines that, as of 2016, at least 30 percent of vehicles produced in Russia are to be equipped with engines manufactured locally.
The new engine plant has an area of 32,000 m² and is to produce up to 600 modern 1.6-litre gasoline engines of the newly developed EA211 series per day.
For employee training, the new engine plant benefits from Volkswagen’s integrated worldwide system. About 60 percent of the employees at Kaluga have already completed training at other Group plants, for example the main Skoda plant at Mlada Boleslav, the German engine plants at Chemnitz and Salzgitter or in Polkowice, Poland.
“With our new, modern engine plant, we will be supplying engines produced locally for our vehicles manufactured in Kaluga and Nizhny Novgorod. We will therefore not only be increasing the local content of our cars, we will also be making them more affordable for our Russian customers,” Marcus Osegowitsch, General Manager of Volkswagen Group Rus, explained.
