Report: Volkswagen to return majority of Golf production for N./S. America to Mexico

Volkswagen seeks to maintain North America’s Golf production in Puebla, Mexico, where most of our Golfs have been manufactured since its inception. Though as of recent years, more of North American-bound Golfs have been also made in homeland Germany to curtail some concerns of build quality and due to varying economic climates.

But beginning in the first quarter of 2014, majority of North and South American-bound Golfs will be made in Puebla once again to push sales in this region.

Volkswagen stated that producing the Golf in Puebla allows them to make  “further strides towards the goal of building more than 75 percent of the cars Volkswagen of America sells in the North American region,” Volkswagen’s North America chief Jonathan Browning said to AutomotiveNews.

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This extensive change is part of Volkswagen of North America CEO Martin Winterkorn’s strategy to become the world’s biggest carmaker by 2018. Adding the Golf production back to Mexico allows Volkswagen to benefit from “lower labor costs and hedge against unfavorable currency fluctuations between the dollar and euro.” Well, let’s just hope that this doesn’t result in a decline in Volkswagen’s build quality and reliability, which some Volkswagen buffs will say occurred in the past from the out-sourced labor.

“With its existing infrastructure, competitive cost structures and free trade agreements, Mexico is the ideal location to produce the Golf for the American market,” Volkswagen’s head of production, Hubert Waltl, said in a statement.

Volkswagen saw a major hike in sales of 31% recently due to the positive reception of the latest Passat, which exceeded the previous high from 1970 when the Volkswagen Beetle and Microbus rode the hippie-highway to success by significantly supporting the cultivation of the major American culture period back in the day.

So far, Volkswagen has received well over 100,000 orders for its next generation Golf, which isn’t even due for sale until the first half of 2014.

– By: Chris Chin

Source: AutomotiveNews