Located in Anting International Auto City on the northwest outskirts of Shanghai, Shanghai Volkswagen Automotive Co., Ltd. (SVW) occupies a total area of 3,330,000 m2, with a floor space of 900,000 m2. Currently having a product lineup made up of six series out of five passenger car platforms of Santana B2, Santana3000, Passat, Polo, Gol and Touran, SVW is one of the largest car-making bases in China with an annual production capacity of over 450,000 units.
Growing Business
Established in March 1985, SVW is the first car-making joint venture after China began its reform and opened to the outside world. The Chinese shareholders own 50% of the interest and the German shareholders own the other 50%, and the term of the joint venture contract was 25 years. On April 12, 2002, the shareholders signed an agreement to extend the contract for another 20 years till 2030.
The birth of SVW put an end to China’s history of making cars behind closed doors at a low technical level and blazed a path of utilizing foreign capital and introducing overseas technology for an accelerated development of the Chinese car-making industry. In the past 20 years, SVW kept accumulating capital on its own and expanding the business without a stop, setting a new mode of development for the Chinese car-making industry. With many capital increases over time, the registered capital of SVW has reached RMB 10 billion from the initial RMB160 million in 1985, and the total assets have. increased from RMB 980 million to RMB35.97 billion.
SVW’s success has greatly promoted the growth of the Chinese car-making industry. While expanding its production scale, SVW started the Santana localization endeavor to revitalize the Chinese parts supply industry. This grand trans-regional, inter-departmental, cross-industry and systematic project has helped a large number of local parts suppliers achieve their technical advancement, thus laying a solid foundation for manufacturing parts and components up to the international standard. Now over 400 domestic suppliers are able to supply SVW with locally made parts. SVW-accepted parts makers are now accepted by other carmakers as their parts suppliers, and some of them have become suppliers for global sourcing manufacturers.
In the transnational, cross-cultural, cross-century and cross-technology background, SVW’s German and Chinese partners cooperate in a pioneering spirit, and the company was commended as “an example of successful Sino-German cooperation”. SVW has been given the title of Top Ten Joint Venture in China and led the list of The Biggest 500 Foreign-invested Enterprises in China for eight consecutive years, and it has been awarded the honor of National Quality and Profit-making Company for nine years in succession. SVW was the first car-maker to receive “National Quality Management Award” issued by China’s Quality Management Association for the first time. Over the years SVW has set quite a number of records in the Chinese passenger vehicle industry.
On July 5, 2005, the 3 millionth SVW-made car rolled off the line, making SVW the first carmaker in China to realize a total output of 3 million cars.
Advanced Facilities
With the completion of the three technical transformation projects, SVW has formed a production layout of four major production areas, i.e. Car Plant 1, Car Plant 2, Car Plant 3 and Engine Plant, plus a technical center. The company boasts a lot of world-class manufacturing facilities and techniques, i.e. the modular assembly line and online laser inspection equipment that ensure a stable manufacturing of high quality products, the fully automatic press lines plus the two 2000T high-precision multi-work bay press machines unique in China that ensure manufacturing precision; a good number of welding robots and modern welding technologies that ensure the rigidity and precision of car bodies; double galvanized sheet metal and modern waxing technique plus advanced car painting technique and automatic painting equipments that lengthen the anti-corrosion period of the car.
Strict Quality Management
Quality is the life of SVW. Following VW's spirit of "making cars as elaborately as making works of art", SVW has worked out a complete quality assurance and inspection system, and persevered in implementing and keeping to the standard of high technological intensity, great safety and elaborate workmanship.
In 1995, SVW became the first carmaker in China to obtain the ISO 9001 Quality System Accreditation. In 2001, SVW passed in succession the VDA6.1 (Quality standard for Germany’s car-making industry) and the ISO 9001 accreditation (2000 Edition). In the same year, SVW was also given the title of “National User Satisfying Enterprise” and received the “2001 National Quality Management Award” issued by China’s Quality Management Association for the first time. In 2003, SVW was granted the awards of “Star Team of National User Satisfying Service” and “Model Unit for the Implementation of Shanghai User Satisfaction Project”. SVW also got the “Golden Quality Award of Shanghai” in 2004.
The Quality Control Center of SVW boasts the biggest and the most advanced comprehensive matching testing lab in China, where modernized and digitalized measurements are taken during quality inspection.
Strong Capability for Independent Vehicle Development
As a joint venture, SVW keeps to its product strategy of independent development along with assimilation of new technology to lift its product development capability. In the 2005 appraisal of technical centers of enterprises in Shanghai, SVW’s technical center was rated first in the automobile industry.
Till now, SVW has made an accumulated investment of RMB 2.0 billion Yuan in hardware facilities over the past years:
The multiple functional technical center is equipped with advanced facilities for independent development of car body and matching of engines with electric systems and chassis. The world-class proving ground was the first of its kind in China that incorporates various road types and equipped with complete facilities for professional vehicle testing; and the quality control lab is installed with world-level equipment for testing metal, non-metal and electric parts.
Through the TTA Training Program and project cooperation, SVW has built up an efficient product development team composed of employees of high qualifications. From introduction, assimilation and absorption of overseas technology to the joint product development, SVW has now entered the constructive period of independent vehicle development. In 2003, the SVW-made RHD POLO cars were exported to Australia, and in March 2004, Santana 3000, a car that SVW developed on its own, was launched on the market. PASSAT LINGYU,cited by the assessment jury of the "Annual Evaluation 2006" of the Chinese Automobile Pictorial as "the most outstanding native vehicle created by outstanding designers using outstanding development pattern", have consistently kept a good sales performance since its launch in November 2005.
