Volkswagen SA excited to produce its 100 000<sup>th</sup> Polo
German carmaker Volkswagen has recently celebrated another milestone as it produced its 100 000th unit for the South African market. VWSA also celebrated the assembly of the two millionth locally-made Polo last year and the company has expressed delight in the news. Made by the automaker’s night shift team at the Kariega Plant, formerly Uitenhage, in
Volkswagen SA excited to produce its 100 000<sup>th</sup> Polo
German carmaker Volkswagen has recently celebrated another milestone as it produced its 100 000th unit for the South African market.
VWSA also celebrated the assembly of the two millionth locally-made Polo last year and the company has expressed delight in the news.
Made by the automaker’s night shift team at the Kariega Plant, formerly Uitenhage, in Nelson Mandela Bay on March 01, the white Polo’s exact nomenclature wasn’t disclosed, though images point to it being potentially the unbadged base model that retails from R334 700.
“Though the majority of our Polos are built for export markets, we are incredibly proud of how popular this vehicle is among South African customers,” Volkswagen South Africa Production Director, Ulrich Schwabe, said in a statement per The Citizen.
“This includes our employees, who build these high-quality vehicles with pride, and whose dedication and love for our vehicles has made this milestone possible”.
According to the statement, the milestone, which comes after the 1 millionth export model rolled out of the Kariega Plant in May last year, comes on the back after the automaker announced a drop in market share and production output by a claimed 30 000 units due to load shedding.
“We lose a lot of units when we ramp down, then we stand still, and then ramp up again but then we also lose. So it’s better not to ramp up and ramp down a lot,” Volkswagen South Africa Managing Director, Martina Biene, remarked to Algoa FM last week.
Looking at the new vehicle sales tabled by the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of South Africa (NAAMSA) last month, a total of 813 VW Polos were sold in the domestic market compared to the 1 513 examples of the Polo Vivo made at the same factory.
Checking out a similar post, BusinessTech Africa reported that VWSA said it had hit a major milestone after building 2 million cars in the Eastern Cape.
VWSA was delighted to have reached such a historical milestone as it built its two-millionth unit of its popular VW Polo model rolling off the production line at its Kariega plant in Uitenhage.
The vehicle manufacturer said the Kariega plant has been building the VW Polo since 1996 as it went through several generations including the Polo Vivo since 2010.
