Seventh-Generation VW Golf Enters Production in Mexico for US Market

The (now, over a year-old) seventh-generation VW Golf has just entered production in the manufacturer’s massive complex located in the Mexican province of Puebla. There, it will share the production line with the Beetle and Jetta.

VW has expanded so much over the last decade or so that it is no longer commercially viable to export the typically European Golf from the Old Continent to the New World because they would not make enough money off it. It’s nice that they’re contributing to the Mexican economy, and creating jobs where before there were none, but that’s where I think the problem lies…

What the automaker is saying and swearing by is that its new plant can supply cars at the same level of quality of those built in one of its home plants, where people had been building cars for a few more decades.

The news comes as Volkswagen de Mexico celebrates its 50th birthday marking the date when on January 15 1964, “the Wolfsburg-based company founded an import, production and sales company,” and three years later the Bettle started rolling off the production line, before production was ceased in 2003.

So, how do you feel about the new Mexican roots of the upcoming US-bound Golf?

By Andrei Nedelea

PHOTO GALLERY

Mazda Kicks Off Production at New Plant in Mexico with Mazda3 Sedan

Mazda's brand new vehicle and engine assembly facility in Salamanca, Mexico, has started mass production earlier than originally anticipated (March, 2014), as the first car, a Mazda3 sedan destined for the US market, rolled off the factory line on Tuesday.

“We have sent over 150 engineers and supervisors to Mazda’s plants in Hiroshima and Hofu, and made every effort to ensure that we are manufacturing products of the highest quality here at MMVO," commented Mazda Managing Executive Officer Keishi Egawa. "With the start of mass production, we now have a system capable of offering vehicles of the same high quality as those made in Japan, on a global scale, and that is extremely gratifying."

Besides the USA, the Japanese carmaker's Mexican plant will produce the Mazda3 for other countries in the Americas and for Europe.

In the near future, Mazda intends to expand the production model line-up to include the Mazda2 sub-compact as well as approximately 50,000 Toyota-branded vehicles built under contract, beginning in the summer of 2015.

Mazda said it aims to reach an annual capacity of 230,000 units by March of 2016.

PHOTO GALLERY