Volkswagen's Great Chinisefication
Good news for Chinese parts makers: Volkswagen, by far the biggest brand in China, wants to gradually achieve full localization in China. In regular English: Volkswagen’s Chinese joint ventures plan to locally source all auto parts and components needed to make cars in China, and will stop importing them.
This according to Winfried Vahland, still Volkswagen of China president, but soon Chairman of Skoda. He is quoted in Gasgoo.
Sure, the local content of the Jetta and Santana is at 95 percent. Newer products, such as the Golf, the Magotan, the CC, the Skoda Superb, still have a lot of imported key components. Sounds a bit counter-intuitive when major automakers source a lot of their parts in China to save cost. This is going to change.
A lot of the more complex parts, turbochargers, DSGs, electric and electronic parts will be made in China ASAP. More research and development should be done in-country as well.
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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"Volkswagen, be far the biggest brand in China, wants to will gradually achieve full localization in China." Please tell me that sentence is goofed up because of Google translate, not poor editing.
Even the iranians are sourcing parts from China... as the always diligent workers have discovered recently. That may mean one thing, VW europe will start turning into a CKD operation. FAIL
Great. Instead of poor quality parts from Mexico now its poor quality parts from China. German my fanny.
Hmm. Outsourcing of manufacturing jobs. It's not just for American industry! Will the Chinese be able to finance future German budget deficits?