Volkswagen Group has plans to build a multi-brand plant in Turkey. VW’s supervisory board has picked a site for the factory near the western coastal city of Izmir over a location in Bulgaria.
The plant will build cars for VW, Skoda and Seat. It will ease capacity constraints at Skoda’s factories in the Czech Republic. The state of Qatar, which has a 17 percent stake in VW, pushed for the factory to be built in Turkey at the board meeting.
A spokesman for Volkswagen’s supervisory board told Reuters the plans for a new site were being firmed up but had not yet been finalized.
Previous reports have said the factory will open in 2022/2023 with an annual capacity of up to 350,000 units. Production will include the Skoda Karoq and Seat Ateca compact SUVs, reports said. Skoda CEO Bernhard Maier said in March that the brand could have sold 100,000 more cars last year if the capacity to build them had been available.
