The Mexican state of Guanajuato just boosted its tax revenues this Tuesday, when the 100th Volkswagen factory worldwide was opened in the city of Silao. The new unit will build up to 330,000 TSI engines annually to supply Volkswagen's North American vehicle plants in Puebla, Mexico and Chattanooga in the US.
The VW Group will be investing more than five billion dollars in North America in the next five years, which makes Silao "a strong symbol of our uninterrupted growth trajectory and the Group's continuing nationalization internationalisation" according to Prof. Martin Winterkorn, otherwise known as the most influential guy in the auto industry today.
Despite the difficulties facing car makers nowadays, VAG just keeps growing, and is already selling more cars than anybody else in world who isn't named Toyota or GM. That being said, Volkswagen is planning to sell over a million cars in the US by 2018.
The Silao plant was built using VAG's ‘Think Blue Factory' program, meaning that the methods they will use during production comply with the latest energy efficiency standards, reducing the engines overall environmental impact significantly. The production halls have energy-efficient roof lights, which provide natural light levels and simultaneously absorb the heat generated by the lighting system. German engineering in da hauße ja!
Mexico and Volkswagen are long time buddies, with the German's first factory opening in Xalostoc in 1962. Fifty years on, a total of 604,000 Volkswagen Jettas, Golf Estates, Beetles and Beetle Cabrios got a Mexican VIN in 2012. We are pretty sure Martin Winterkorn said ¡Muy bien! at some point...
Photo credit: Volkswagen AG, Patrick Peccatte & Michel Le Querrec and Thorsten Haustein