FAW-Volkswagen last week opened a new production line at its Foshan plant in China's southerly Guangdong province, as part of the company's aggressive expansion strategy in the world's largest vehicle market.
The Sino-German joint venture has now completed the second phase of a three-stage investment at what it calls the Foshan 'mega-plant'.
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The third and final expansion phase is scheduled to be completed by 2020, bringing total investment in the plant to CNY10bn (US$1.53bn) and production capacity to 600,000 vehicles per year.
The second production line will produce the Audi Q2L and the VW T-Roc models, the latter being the first VW-badged SUV to be produced in China by FAW-Volkswagen. They will share Volkswagen's MQB modular platform.
The third production line to be completed by 2020 will produce electric vehicles based on Volkswagen's MEB platform.
FAW-Volkswagen also plans to build an electric vehicle battery assembly line at Foshan for when the third production line comes on stream.
The company claims the newly completed assembly line has zero emissions thanks to its "complete purification and recycling system" while good insulation ensures it remains cool in summer and warm in winter.
This is the third of four new FAW-Volkswagen production lines to come on stream this year; the others are located in the cities of Qingdao, Changchun and Tianjin.
