“The Pekan plant is part of our long term strategy for sustainable growth and expansion in Malaysia. This plant is a key milestone for us, as it enabled us to produce affordable German engineered vehicles for Malaysians. Additionally, we have created highly qualified job opportunities here,” said Volkswagen Malaysia managing director Armin Keller.
The trip was held last week in conjunction with Volkswagen Group Malaysia’s ninth anniversary.
Set up in 2012, the assembly plant is the first Volkswagen plant in Malaysia.
About 589 people are employed at Pekan exclusively in the Volkswagen Operation, having produced about 10,000 units of the Polo Hatchback, Polo Sedan, Jetta and Passat models in 2014. The RM1.6bil plant started vehicle production in 2012.
During the inaugural visit, dubbed “Volkswagen Werkstour”, which translates to “Factory Tour” the media toured the production area of the plant to witness the Laser Welding System.
This state of the art technology joins the car’s roof to the body sides in one continuous go for a high quality finish and better sound proofing.
The plant is also the world’s only automotive assembly line capable of putting together four different models of cars on a single Body Shop line using the exclusive VW Framer equipment.
According to Bruno Torres (Volkswagen Pekan Plant Manager), “Volkswagen is at the forefront of automotive innovation, leading the charter on developing an extensive range of world-class products and models. Here in Malaysia, we set a high benchmarkconsistentwith the Das Auto concept when producing cars locally.”
The Das Auto concept, which means ‘The Car’, encompasses anything and everything about a car.
