German Chancellor, Angela Merkel has opened Webasto‘s new production facility in the Chinese city of Wuhan in Hubei Province.
The factory will manufacture roof systems, high-voltage heaters and charging solutions in what is now the company’s largest plant.
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“Webasto has been the market leader for sunroofs and panorama roofs in China for years – and worldwide,” said Webasto chairman, Holger Engelmann.
“Since we have reached the limits of our capacity at our old plant in Wuhan and expect further growth, we have invested about EUR50m (US$55m) in a new location. It is also the first Chinese Webasto plant in which we will produce solutions for the electromobility in addition to roof systems.
“We see very good opportunities to establish ourselves as an innovative systems partner to the automotive industry in China in this area as well.”
Webasto has been manufacturing roofs for Chinese automobile manufacturers and joint ventures in this area of business at the industrial centre, Wuhan since 2014. After moving from a rented property to a site owned by the company itself and tripling the capacity, the new plant is currently the Webasto Group’s largest production site worldwide.
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By GlobalDataOn 41,000 square metres, sunroofs and panorama roofs as well as electric heating systems and charging stations for electric vehicles are manufactured. The plant offers capacities for the production of around 2m roof systems per year.
In addition, more than 1.2m electric heating systems and 600,000 charging stations can be manufactured there annually.
Webasto has been active in China since 2001. Since then, the People’s Republic has developed into the company’s largest market with sales of around EUR1.3bn in 2018.
Webasto currently has about 3,500 employees at ten locations in China, to date mainly producing car roofs of which more and more are large panorama versions.
The ramp-up of production in an eleventh plant in Jiaxing is planned by the end of this year.
In addition to roofs, Webasto will also develop, test and produce battery systems for the Chinese market.
