Volkswagen mulls US site in Georgia, S.Carolina, where is Jacksonville & Cecil?

[thelakelander]

Georgia and South Carolina are competing for a new U.S. auto assembly plant.  Any reason why Jacksonville is not interested in this or going after it full blast with Cecil Commerce Center?  Is it time for a recall?

Volkswagen mulls US site in Georgia, S.Carolina

Sat Jan 12, 2008 10:30am EST-Reuters

FRANKFURT, Jan 12 (Reuters) - Volkswagen (VOWG.DE: Quote, Profile, Research) (VOWG.DE: Quote, Profile, Research) has narrowed the field among possible sites for a U.S. assembly plant to Georgia or South Carolina, German industry publication Automobilwoche reported on Saturday citing a company source.

Both Georgia with Savannah and South Carolina with Charleston possess a harbour, it reported, while the latter also has a strong supplier network helped in part by BMW (BMWG.DE: Quote, Profile, Research) which began assembling cars in the state several years ago.

The article is scheduled to appear in Automobilwoche on Monday. Volkswagen, which could not be reached for a comment, has said it expects to decide in the first half of 2008 whether it will build cars in the United States again.

(Reporting by Christiaan Hetzner, Editing by Peter Blackburn)

Official: VW's U.S. plant will build up to 250,000 cars
Still no production decision on Up! small car

Luca Ciferri and Bettina Mayer
Automotive News
January 13, 2008 - 2:34 pm ET

DETROIT -- A future Volkswagen plant in the United States should have capacity to build up to 250,000 cars, Ulrich Hackenberg said today at the Detroit auto show.

In an interview, Hackenberg, the VW brand board member for development, also indicated that, contrary to some rumors, VW is not looking to buy a plant from Chrysler.

"When we look for a production site, we do our own research and decide whether and where we will produce," Hackenberg said. " The decision will be finalized this year," he added.

The plant has to be big enough "for production of about 220,000 to 250,000 cars a year," he said.

Up! "is a global concept."

The VW board member said a final decision on the company's Up! global concept has not been made. "We are testing the market. In this decision process, we are thinking about other markets because it is a global concept."

Hackenberg said that if the Up! is offered in the United States, it should be manufactured there or in Mexico.

Is Volkswagen looking at Anderson?

By Heidi Cenac-Independent Mail

Published 11:59 a.m., January 14, 2008

Anderson is one of the tops sites for a new Volkswagen AG plant, Automotive News reported Saturday.

VW was looking for a location to complement its assembly plant in Mexico. The company has narrowed its search for a North American plant site to Georgia and South Carolina and will announce its choice by the middle of this year, the industry publication reported.

"[They] are the finalists," one executive told Automotive News . "But the executive committee and supervisory board haven't made a final decision."

Anderson is reported to be the leading site in the Carolinas and Georgia, according to Automotive News's inside sources. The magazine did not name any sites in Georgia under consideration. It cited an unnamed U.S. source who said VW was considering Anderson, about 45 minutes from the BMW plant in Greer.

According to Automotive News, VW wants the plant to open by 2011 so the automaker is believed to be considering only sites of 1,000 acres or more that can be immediately developed.

Heather Jones, director of Anderson County's Office of Economic Development, said she could neither confirm or deny the rumors. Her office is scheduled to make an economic development announcement at tomorrow night's County Council meeting, but the two are not related, she said.

VW may expand in Anderson
S.C. site among leading options for new car plant, trade mag reports

By JIM DuPLESSIS - jduplessis@thestate.com

Anderson is among leading candidates in the Carolinas and Georgia for a VW car plant that would bring hundreds of jobs and heavy investments in a region sorely in need of both.

Automotive News, a Detroit trade magazine, reported Saturday that Volkswagen AG was homing in on the South for the plant that would complement its assembly plant in Mexico, citing sources familiar with the project.

“The executive committee and supervisory board haven’t yet made the final decision,” a VW insider told Automobilwoche, the German sister publication to Automotive News.

The addition of an automotive assembly plant would be significant for South Carolina and other Southern states, which have lost thousands of manufacturing jobs in the past decade.

South Carolina gained thousands of automotive jobs in the 1990s as BMW expanded and drew suppliers to the state. However, the sector’s job growth has stalled since 2000.

Time is of the essence, Automotive News reported, because VW wants a big plant open by 2011. To speed the plant’s completion, the automaker is believed to be considering only sites of 1,000 acres or more that can be immediately developed.

North Carolina has two such sites, the magazine reported. One is a 1,688-acre parcel less than a mile from I-95 near the city of Rocky Mount, east of Raleigh.

The Rocky Mount site is four hours south of VW’s future North American headquarters in Herndon, Va. It would give VW easy interstate access to German auto suppliers servicing BMW’s Greer factory, five hours away, and the Mercedes-Benz factory in Vance, Ala.

Automotive News did not name any sites in Georgia under consideration. It cited an unnamed U.S. source who said VW was considering Anderson, about 45 minutes from the BMW plant.

The Upstate city, little more than 30 miles from Greenville, was one of the places BMW considered in 1992 for its first U.S. automotive plant. However, after a visit by BMW’s chairman, the company asked then-Gov. Carroll Campbell for a site by the Greenville-Spartanburg airport near Greer.

Campbell and legislators arranged the deal that landed the plant, which now employs about 4,500 people, most of them production workers making about $25 per hour.

The South would be VW’s second shot at a U.S. plant. The company opened a plant in Pennsylvania in the 1980s to make the VW Rabbit, but it closed several years later.

Rumors of a return by VW, or its Audi luxury subsidiary, have been surfacing since at least the early 1990s. Like other European automakers, the company seeks to cut its high cost of Euro-based parts and have a manufacturing presence in one of the world’s largest car markets.

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=568989

[Lunican]

This would fall directly in the JEDC's court. What is their opinion on this?

[JeffreyS]

Cecil seems like such a great place for an assembly plant. Sooner or later this asset will pay off.
I hope Savannah wins the VW plant.(If we can't have it.)

[thelakelander]

Read the bold in this article.  This is something the city needs to consider as a reason to pursue something like this over the Walmart distribution centers of the world for Cecil.

VW Considers Anderson For Plant?
Automotive News reports South Carolina and Georgia are finalists

WSPA-TV

Tuesday, Jan 15, 2008 - 07:30 AM

Volkswagen is looking south - as in South Carolina and Georgia - to build a new plant according to a report in Automotive News. The outlet reports the plant would build vehicles for the United States and Europe.

Our media coverage partners at The Independent-Mail report Heather Jones, director of Anderson County's Office of Economic Development, said she could neither confirm nor deny the rumors.

Automotive News says the decision on where to build the plant hasn't been made, but the matter should be settled this year.

The Upstate is already home to BMW Manufacturing in Greer and will soon be home to the Clemson University International Center for Automotive Research. ICAR is under construction in Greenville County. The mission of ICAR is to establish world-class facilities for automotive and motorsports research.

BMW already pays off in big ways for South Carolina. BMW invested three billion dollars in the Greer plant which directly employs more than 4,500 workers.

A study by the University of South Carolina finds every job at the plant creates three more for supplier companies in the Upstate.

The Greenville News reports BMW is looking to add more jobs to the plant in Greer, while the company is dropping workers worldwide.

The paper reports the number of workers in Greer is expected to grow as the plant moves toward production of 240,000 vehicles annually, a target for about 2012.

Information from Automotive News, The Independent-Mail, & The Greenville News

[gatorback]

I think Jacksonville has considered this and other options and has decided we can't afford it.  South Carolina has a state tax; Georgia has a state tax, that's where money to fund the incentives could comes from.  Jacksonville can't even afford to decorate downtown Jacksonville for the holiday, where in the world would they get the money to lure VW AG? (IMHO)

[thelakelander]

lol...fireworks budget maybe?

[Lunican]

We aren't interested anyway. We are very busy coming up with ways to reduce crime. Creating jobs would just be a distraction from that.

[vicupstate]

Last week Rocky Mount NC was rumored to be in the running for this plant.  This week is 'supposedly' is down to Savannah and SC, but not Anderson/Greenville but Charleston.

Who knows what the truth is, but still no mention of Jax.

ajc.com > Business

Another tease or real deal? VW may build plant in Pooler
Site near Savannah has been spurned by automakers several times

By DAN CHAPMAN
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 01/25/08

Georgia is, yet again, in the running for a major automobile factory, with Germany's Volkswagen AG eyeing the oft-jilted town of Pooler outside Savannah.

It's deja vu for Pooler, which sits alongside a prime 1,500-acre site spurned by Mercedes-Benz (twice), Audi (once) and myriad heavy-manufacturing companies that have considered building factories there since 2003.

"We've been dangling and waiting. We really thought it was a done deal before," Pooler Mayor Mike Lamb, familiar with the latest rumors, said Friday. "I look at that site every time I drive by there, and it's just a doggone shame nobody is in there."

This time, though, Pooler may end up a bride rather than bridesmaid. Volkswagen has narrowed its selection to Pooler and a site near Charleston, S.C., a German automotive magazine reported last week. Further fueling optimism: the cheap dollar, proximity to a port and Volkswagen's need to tap the lucrative North American market.

"They're getting killed here. It's an unprofitable market for them. Ultimately, you probably need to build where you sell," said Dave Cole, chairman of the not-for-profit Center for Automotive Research at the University of Michigan. "And things are beginning to unfold pretty fast. The competitive environment is really tough right now, and that will drive some decisions sooner rather than later."

Steve Keyes, a Volkswagen of America spokesman, wouldn't list the sites under consideration and denied that the company has winnowed its choices. A decision to build a North American factory will be made by June, he added.

VW's so-called Strategy 2018 calls for more than doubling U.S. sales to 800,000 vehicles a year. The midpriced automaker, along with subsidiaries Audi and Bentley, sold 328,068 cars and trucks in the United States last year, largely unchanged from 2006.

Stefan Jacoby, the CEO of Volkswagen of America, said last November that a new U.S. factory, if necessary, should be up and running by 2011 or 2012. Hampered by slow U.S. sales, speed is of the essence for the maker of sporty Jettas, Beetles and Rabbits.

"With the exchange rate, there's a sense of urgency right now," said Kristian Wolf, president of the Southern chapter of the German American Chamber of Commerce in Atlanta. "The environment for investment [in the United States] is ideal if you're sitting on a lot of euros. VW, for years, wanted to do something over here and now they want to move forward as quick as possible because who knows how long this environment will last."

The dollar has fallen 40 percent against the euro since 2001. Companies in Europe that export to the United States are getting slammed by the euro's high value. Add expensive German labor costs, and production, whether in Georgia or South Carolina, makes good economic sense. Volkswagen's factory would employ at least 2,000 workers. Sites already prepped for heavy manufacturing â€" the Pooler location is graded and laced with water and sewer pipes â€" would allow the automaker to rapidly ramp up construction.

Automobilewoche, the German trade magazine, reported last week that a VW executive labeled Pooler and Charleston "finalists." Both sites offer quick highway, port and rail access. A network of auto-parts suppliers is sprinkled from North Carolina to Mississippi. Additional factors, according to European and American trade publications: VW's new U.S. headquarters will be located in Herndon, Va., a quick trip up the seaboard; and the time difference with headquarters in Wolfsburg, Germany, is only six hours.

Earlier, VW was also considering sites in Anderson, S.C., and two in North Carolina. The company already makes cars in Mexico. Spokesman Keyes said VW is also weighing a new factory in Mexico or Canada. Volkswagen built cars in Pennsylvania from 1978 to 1988, but poor sales led to its closure. The automotive giant has long been rumored as desirous of another U.S. manufacturing platform.

The research center's Cole said that battered automaker Chrysler could build minivans with VW.

"Georgia would be one of the prime states where this would be in play," he said. "Is it a sure thing? No. But both GM and Ford have closed plants in Atlanta, so a really good workforce is already there. How this all unfolds is not clear. But it's going to unfold."

Audi, the luxury division of Volkswagen, considered building a factory in Pooler three years ago, yet another automaker teasing Georgia. Mercedes all but turned shovels at the site in 2003, but decided against building Sprinter vans as the company's U.S. fortunes soured.

A year later, aircraft maker Boeing looked at the Pooler site. Rolls Royce and other European and Asian manufacturers have also danced with local and state economic development officials â€" to no avail. Georgia finally landed an automaker, Kia Motors, in 2006. The Korean car company is taking applications for 2,500 jobs at its $1.2 billion West Point plant set to open in late 2009.

Mayor Lamb hopes automotive luck shines on his town next.

"But I'm not going to get so excited until we get a little bit closer," he said.

 
Find this article at:
http://www.ajc.com/business/content/business/stories/2008/01/25/volkswagen_0126.html 
 

 

[thelakelander]

Hopefully, Savannah lands the plant.  Maybe we can be like Brunswick and live off the crumbs (suppliers attracted to the vicinity).

[vicupstate]

The verdict is finally in on this plant, the winner is....

Chattanooga Tennessee


http://www.thestate.com/breakingbiz/story/461508.html

[gatorback]

And Toyota is moving to Brazil.  I wonder why VW is so set on America, must be the huge tax cuts by the city.  Jacksonville don't have "taxes" so we couldn't possible give any incentives.

[vicupstate]

A cheap dollar for one thing.  Toyota is probably going to Brazil to ccompete with GM, which does very well there.

[Driven1]

The verdict is finally in on this plant, the winner is....

Chattanooga Tennessee


http://www.thestate.com/breakingbiz/story/461508.html

good for them.  my one visit there was enough to make me want to go back.  i know we have done a piece here on chattanooga before.