Passat assembled where by who?

[roadhard1960]

I was trying to discover who assembles the Passat where without much luck. I discovered that Skoda has a plant in India that makes a Passat, Skoda Octavia, and the Audi A4. http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/447927.cms
I did not know the Dasher and the Quantum in the US were also know as Passats elsewhere. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Passat

So the challenging question of the day is this. Where have Passats been assemble over the years and who might "own" that assembly plant? I was under the impression that the Passats of recent years were made by Audi but had engines mounted different because the transmissions were different. Other cosmetic things to justify the price difference. Is it like the Toyota Matrix and the Pontiac Vibe that are made in California on the same assembly line in a joint venture plant or is it something less joint? Of course since VAG has stock in VW and Audi the ownership is more muddy than a GM/Toyota deal.

 

[oilhammer]

First, Audi is a subsidiary of Volkswagen...the Audi name was resurrected when VAG bought Auto Union from Daimler in 1965. Auto Union was Audi, Horch, DKW, and Wanderer. And that merge of 4 companies is where the 4 rings came from. NSU may also have been involved somewhere in that deal, not sure. NSU was responsible for the Wankel engine, which was a disaster (the RO80 was the model that used them) and VAG quickly sold the rights to the Wankel to Mazda...and the rest is history on the Wankel from then.

Audi is to Volkswagen like Mercury is to Ford. The cars are built alongside one another in the same plants if the platform is shared.

Our Passats have pretty much always been built in either Wolfsburg (early on, Dasher era) or Emden (later on). I know my B5 was built in Emden, same as the Audi A4 of the same vintage.

Many German assembly workers I have been told are from East European or Turkish decent. Although most modern VAG products are built mostly by robots anyways.

FWIW: The Volkswagen "Group" is Volkswagen, Audi, Seat, Skoda, Bentley, Lamborghini. Volkswagen, AG is commonly refered to as "VAG". VAG has plants all over the world, with many plants building duplicate cars, and in some cases even older defunct models. The B2 Passat, which was sold here from '82 through '87, was also built in South America and in China, under the names Santana and VAG even built a version for Ford called the Versailles. The B2 was still built in China as recently as 2003 I believe. It is one of the best sellers there. VAG also builds the A2 chassis Jetta there still to this day, albeit with some facelifted upgrades.

 

[TornadoRed]

First, Audi is a subsidiary of Volkswagen...the Audi name was resurrected when VAG bought Auto Union from Daimler in 1965. Auto Union was Audi, Horch, DKW, and Wanderer.
(snip)
FWIW: The Volkswagen "Group" is Volkswagen, Audi, Seat, Skoda, Bentley, Lamborghini. Volkswagen, AG is commonly refered to as "VAG".

You forgot Bugatti.

 

[oilhammer]

Yes! The Veyron! How could I forget that the fastest "production" car ever is really a Volkswagen!!! Thanks for the clarification...I will now hang my head in shame....

 

[Drivbiwire]

No "human" builds a VW or Audi...

This picture could have been taken anywhere in the world...The system is the same the only thing that changes is the nationality of the guy sitting behind the desk.

DB

 

[CoriolisSTORM]

No "human" builds a VW or Audi...

This picture could have been taken anywhere in the world...The system is the same the only thing that changes is the nationality of the guy sitting behind the desk.

DB

Is that the phaeton assembly plant?

 

[bigEZ]

also, if you're really doubting/wondering where your car was made, you can always tell by the vin. mine starts with a "w" which symbolizes germany; "1" is for us; "3" i think is mexico; "j" i think is japan. all of these can be looked up on the internet.

 

[fase2000TDI]

No "human" builds a VW or Audi...

This picture could have been taken anywhere in the world...The system is the same the only thing that changes is the nationality of the guy sitting behind the desk.

DB

he looks like a starship captain.

 

[GoFaster]

If you think the car was put together by robots ... you'd be surprised at the number of manual operations in a modern plant. A lot of things might be done using assistance tools and fixtures, but there's still plenty of workers on the assembly line.

In the plant that I'm most familiar with, welding is almost entirely automated (it's too critical regarding the vehicle's crash protection), but final assembly is mostly manual but with countless fixtures and tools to assist the manual operations. And this is a major auto maker with a well regarded reputation.

 

[oilhammer]

Volkswagen has pushed automation quite far, perhaps not as far in some instances as the Japanese. The Wolfsburg plant was so automated that even when the A2 cars came out in late '84 there were robots doing things as tedious as installing the alternator, its belt, and even tensioning it! Whereas the Westmoreland plant here in the US was much less automated when building the A2.

A lot of it depends on the plants. Mexico has cheap labor, so its automation is less than some other European plants, but that is fast changing.

The old air-cooled Beetle was built in Puebla using LESS automation than the Wolfsburg plant used to build the same car some 30 years prior!

Before it closed, I was in the Ford Hazelwood plant, where the Explorer was built. There was not nearly as much automation there as you'd think, but that plant was an aging place that would have been too costly to upgrade so Ford shut it down. Of course, very little of the "components" were built there. Most everything came from someplace else, and it was just a final assembly point. I remember seeing huge stacks of 4.0L V6 engines on pallets, all from Cologne, Germany. Complete units, all ready to go save for installation of belt-driven accessories. Even had German wording all over the labels...."Achtung!"

 

[10then34]

NSU may also have been involved somewhere in that deal, not sure. NSU was responsible for the Wankel engine, which was a disaster (the RO80 was the model that used them) and VAG quickly sold the rights to the Wankel to Mazda...and the rest is history on the Wankel from then.

VW bought NSU in '69, shortly after buying Auto Union. They rolled NSU into the Audi division. Apart from the engine, the first Audi 100s had many elements of the Ro80. The Ro80 was one of the earliest production cars with an aerodynamic coefficient cW lower than .35 and had for the time many advanced features (4 disc brakes, independent suspension w. McPherson struts etc.).

The Wankel engine was not so much a disaster as the fact that its testing was essentially relegated to the first generation of buyers (just like the DMF flywheel in the A5 Jetta). People went through engines at an alarming pace, in part because the NSU dealers (used to 1.1l air-cooled I-4 engines in the 'Prinz' line of subcompact coupes) where unfamiliar with fixing them and rather swapped them out than changing a gasket.

That car with a I-6 watercooled engine and we could drive NSU's today.

 

[lbhskier37]

If you think the car was put together by robots ... you'd be surprised at the number of manual operations in a modern plant. A lot of things might be done using assistance tools and fixtures, but there's still plenty of workers on the assembly line.

In the plant that I'm most familiar with, welding is almost entirely automated (it's too critical regarding the vehicle's crash protection), but final assembly is mostly manual but with countless fixtures and tools to assist the manual operations. And this is a major auto maker with a well regarded reputation.

The reason domestic auto plants aren't very automated is because the UAW won't allow a robot to replace a human unless there is a valid safety reason. Japanese and Korean plants are very automated because they are non-union shops and can put in robots wherever they please. At alabamas Hyundai plant the only time people touch the car is to do things where robots don't have a dexterity, like running wiring. This is a big reason that the big three are struggling.