Volkswagen launches full assembly at Kaluga plant
KALUGA. Oct 20 (Interfax) - Volkswagen AG launched full assembly at its plant in Kaluga, central Russia, on Tuesday, an Interfax correspondent reported from the ceremony.
The German car giant has invested EUR 570 million in building the plant and EUR 774 million in the project as a whole. The plant intends to produce ten VW and ten Skoda models.
The SKD shop at the Kaluga site already produces the Skoda Octavia, Octavia Combi, Octavia Tour, Octavia RS, Octavia Scout, Skoda Superb, Skoda Roomster, Skoda Fabia, Skoda Fabia Combi, Skoda Yeti, Volkswagen Passat, Volkswagen Passat CC, Volkswagen Tiguan, Volkswagen Golf, Volkswagen Touareg, Volkswagen Jetta, Volkswagen T5, Volkswagen T5 Lang and Volkswagen Caddy.
The plant should be producing 150,000 cars per year in 2010. It currently has 1,800 employees, and plans to increase its head count to 3,000 in 2010.
Work on the Kaluga plant started on October 28, 2006. The first cars rolled off the assembly line on November 30, 2007.
The plant has only screwdrivered cars together until now. Its first models were the VW Tiguan and Skoda Octavia.