Volkswagen, under the regulatory scanner for cheating on emission tests in India as well as elsewhere in the world, on Saturday (02 January) said its Indian unit had recorded its best-ever production of 1,23,456 units at its Pune plant in 2015, up 10 per cent from the previous year.
"In 2015, we rolled out 1,23,456 cars from the production facility at Chakan (Pune). These were 12,012 units or 10 per cent more than the comparable numbers in 2014," the German company said in a statement.
Till date, Volkswagen Pune plant has rolled out over 575,000 cars since the start of production in March 2009.
"Volkswagen Pune Plant has increased its production for the third year in a row. This has been possible because of the increased demand from both domestic and export markets," said Andreas Lauermann, president and managing director, Volkswagen India.
"Unfortunately, the global emission topic slowed down our development in the second half of the year and held us back from an even better result. With the new compact sedan, we have a new car in the production pipeline which will help us in carrying the pace forward in 2016 too." he added.
The total production of 123,456 cars at Pune included approximately 72,000 Volkswagen Vento cars, 38,800 Volkswagen Polo cars and 12,700 Škoda Rapid cars.
The domestic production grew strongly with an increase of approximately 23 per cent to approximately 54,140 units while the export production maintained its strong base with a growth of four per cent to 69,300 units in 2015 as compared to 2014.
BW Reporters
The author is Senior Correspondent with BW Businessworld
