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Volkswagen Chooses Turkey For 2022 Passat, 2022 Skoda Superb Production

Come 2022, Volkswagen will start production of the next-generation Passat in the city of Manisa. The Skoda Superb will join the German sedan and station wagon, and choosing Turkey is a worrying change for the group.
2020 Volkswagen Passat GTE 56 photos
Photo: Volkswagen
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For starters, Recep Tayyip Erdogan is not exactly the best president out there, a man with little regard to freedom of speech and other things we take for granted in the western hemisphere. There’s also the poor quality control of Turkish automotive plants, as demonstrated by every brand operating there.

Fiat, for example, manufactures the Tipo in the transcontinental country located on the Anatolian peninsula, an economy car with an extremely poor reliability record. Without further beating around the bush, Volkswagen chose Turkey because the cost of labor is far more advantageous than Germany or the Czech Republic. It’s that simple, boiling down to crunching the numbers.

Wolfsburg is keeping its lips shut on the subject at the time of writing, but Automotive News Europe saw “an internal document” confirming the billion-euro investment in the Turkish plant. Approximately 4,000 jobs will be created by the facility and neighboring suppliers, and the maximum production capacity is estimated at 300,000 vehicles on a yearly basis.

When pressed about the matter, a spokesman told Automotive News Europe that Volkswagen is “in the final stages of negotiations” with the local authorities and suppliers. Two-thirds of the output are for the Passat while the remaining third goes to Skoda’s mid-size sedan and station wagon.

The cars produced in Manisa will cater to Eastern Europe, Russia, and the Middle East, and this further shows how little regard Volkswagen has for quality control. On the other hand, the group needs to free up production capacity in Germany and the Czech Republic for the electric offensive started by the MEB platform with the ID.3 compact hatchback and ID.4 crossover.

Volkswagen Turkey Otomotiv Sanayi ve Ticaret AS is the name of the unit established by Volkswagen in Turkey, a piece of information confirmed by the trade registry gazette on Wednesday morning. This legal entity will "design, manufacture, and assemble motor vehicles” with a capital of approximately $165 million at the current exchange rates.
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About the author: Mircea Panait
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After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well.
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