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Volk­swa­gen plans to open two new factor­ies in North Amer­ica.

Old VW Van
 Volk­swa­gen plans to open two new factor­ies in North Amer­ica to spear­head its push into the elec­tric vehicle mar­ket, which the Ger­man car­maker says has become more appeal­ing since Pres­id­ent Joe Biden unveiled more than $400bn in clean energy incent­ives.

VW said yes­ter­day it would open a new assembly plant in Columbia, South Car­o­lina, to pro­duce elec­tric mod­els for its revived Scout brand. It is also search­ing for a site for a new bat­tery fact­ory in the US or Canada.

VW is fol­low­ing other inter­na­tional car­makers, includ­ing Hyundai, Honda and Toyota, that have agreed on deals to pro­duce elec­tric vehicles or bat­ter­ies in the region since the sub­sidies were intro­duced as part of the US Infla­tion Reduc­tion Act. To qual­ify entirely, elec­tric cars must be sub­stan­tially made in the US and exclude mater­i­als from cer­tain coun­tries, includ­ing China.

«We would have done that any­way,» said Ant­l­itz, VW's finance chief, refer­ring to its plans for the factor­ies, but the incent­ives in the new legis­la­tion present «the pos­sib­il­ity to enlarge our global foot­print even faster in the US». Sep­ar­ately yes­ter­day, VW said it expec­ted global sales to climb steeply this year as the sup­ply chain short­ages that have hampered car­makers for two years begin to ease. It fore­cast that sales would rise from 8.3mn last year to 9.5mn this year and that rev­en­ues would climb by up to 15 per cent, send­ing shares in the com­pany up 7 per cent.

«We expect the sup­ply chain bot­tle­necks to ease gradu­ally,» said Ant­l­itz.

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  1. Tom4 March 2023 at 12:03

    Volkswagen does what all other carmakers did or will soon do: invest more in the US because of the clean energy incentives. Couldn't other countries do the same and offer such incentives?

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    Replies
    1. Aaron4 March 2023 at 12:10

      I don't know if any country can offer $400bn for this. It's just not possible for the vast majority of countries out there. I wonder if even China could do it.

      Delete
    2. Tom4 March 2023 at 12:39

      I agree. Maybe not $400bn but perhaps $100bn or even $50bn. Something that would make some companies want to invest in the UK, France, Spain and so on?

      Delete
    3. Aaron4 March 2023 at 13:46

      Yes, that should be possible for bigger countries, I think. But I don't know if it will happen. The UK should have done that to stop SoftBank from leaving the London Stock exchange for example. Not the same thing we're talking about but it just shows that countries like the UK waste time trying to talk these companies into staying instead of actually offering meaningful encouragement for them to want to stay.

      Delete
    4. Tom4 March 2023 at 14:13

      The UK should have done (and do) more to encourage companies to stay and invest in the UK. Instead they are wasting money left and right and not focusing their attention on what is really important for the future of the nation. Latest politicians are just way in over their heads.

      Delete

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