SMM: according to reports, due to the new crown virus pandemic, car sales plummeted, existing factory overcapacity, Volkswagen Group decided not to build a new plant in Turkey.

Previously, Volkswagen chose to build a new plant in Manisa (Manisa), near Izmir on the west coast of Turkey, which was scheduled to start construction at the end of 2020 and start production of the next generation of Passat and Skoda Superb models in 2022, with a maximum annual production capacity of 300000 vehicles.

According to sources, if the Turkish factory is completed, it will be the 133rd plant of the Volkswagen Group, which will only aggravate Volkswagen's overcapacity under the current situation. Volkswagen now plans to produce the next Passat and Skoda Superb at its Bratislava plant in Slovakia.

Volkswagen Passat is currently manufactured at the Emden plant in Germany and sold to the European market. In the future, when the Emden plant no longer produces the Passat, it will switch to an electric car of the Volkswagen ID series. Skoda Superb is currently manufactured at Skoda's Kovasni plant in the Czech Republic.

Last October, because of international criticism of Turkey's military action in Syria and concerns about the impact on the company's reputation, the public temporarily shelved its plans to build a plant in Turkey. Volkswagen said the decision to build the plant had been made at a time when the overall world economy was improving, and that it had now decided to abandon the plan because of a sharp drop in demand for cars as a result of the epidemic.

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