Volkswagen Autoeuropa Lda. is an automotive assembly plant, located in the city of

Palmela Palmela () is a town and a municipality in Portugal. The population in 2011 was 62,831, in an area of 465.12 km². The municipality is located in the Lisboa Region and Setúbal District, about south of Lisbon. The municipal holiday is 1 Ju ...

, near

Lisbon Lisbon (; pt, Lisboa ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 544,851 within its administrative limits in an area of 100.05 km2. Lisbon's urban area extends beyond the city's administrative limits w ...

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of th ...

. Formed in 1991, it began operations in 1995 fully owned by Volkswagen. It is the largest foreign industrial investment in Portugal.

History

After the signature of a joint venture agreement between

Volkswagen Group Volkswagen AG (), known internationally as the Volkswagen Group, is a German multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, Germany. The company designs, manufactures and distributes passenger and commercia ...

and

Ford Ford commonly refers to: * Ford Motor Company, an automobile manufacturer founded by Henry Ford * Ford (crossing), a shallow crossing on a river Ford may also refer to: Ford Motor Company * Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company * Ford F ...

in July 1991, the 2 million m² plant was built in four years, including a surrounding industrial park on which key suppliers are located. The plant and surrounding industrial park cost in total 1.970 M€. Opened as a 50/50 joint venture, its initial purpose was to assemble a communal-designed MPV model sold under three marques:

Volkswagen Sharan The Volkswagen Sharan is a seven-seater minivan that was produced by the German Volkswagen Group and built at the AutoEuropa plant in Palmela, Portugal, with a front-wheel-drive version across two generations, from 1995 to 2022. Through badge engi ...

, SEAT Alhambra, and

Ford Galaxy The Ford Galaxy is a seven-seater car produced by Ford of Europe from June 1995 to April 2023. Considered in the motor industry to be a large multi-purpose vehicle (MPV), it was the first Ford-brand MPV produced and marketed outside of North Ame ...

. Producing these vehicles, Volkswagen Autoeuropa almost reached its production limit of 172,500 units per year. However, when Ford left the joint venture and the model life-cycle approached its end, Volkswagen took ownership of the plant and production declined considerably. Under Volkswagen's internal bidding system, the plant had to compete for new models with other Volkswagen plants, while threatening to close the plant and to give concessions to the workers and the State. Eventually, AutoEuropa won the production rights of the new convertible/coupé-only

Volkswagen Eos The Volkswagen Eos was a sport compact cabriolet coupé produced by the German automaker Volkswagen from 2006 to 2015. Assembled at AutoEuropa in Portugal, it was a convertible only compact coupé introduced as the successor of the Volkswagen Gol ...

from late 2005, producing just 79,896 vehicles of the original models plus the Eos. In 2008 the plant started production of the third generation

Volkswagen Scirocco The Volkswagen Scirocco is a three-door, front-engine, front-wheel-drive, sport compact hatchback manufactured and marketed by Volkswagen in two generations from 1974 to 1992 and a third generation from 2008 until 2017. Production ended without a ...

, and presently employs 3,000 people on site, 2,350 supplier jobs on the industrial park, and an additional 3,750 supplier jobs within Portugal. As the existing models come to the end of their life cycles, the plant will need to compete for new models from 2010 onwards. It was proposed that in 2009 to prepare the production line for the replacement, although the

economic crisis An economy is an area of the production, distribution and trade, as well as consumption of goods and services. In general, it is defined as a social domain that emphasize the practices, discourses, and material expressions associated with th ...

will delay that model. Internal sources said Volkswagen Autoeuropa was to take up production of the

Volkswagen Polo The Volkswagen Polo is a supermini car ( B-segment) produced by the German car manufacturer Volkswagen since 1975. It is sold in Europe and other markets worldwide in hatchback, saloon, and estate variants throughout its production run. Histor ...

by November 2010 at the latest, as a 2011 showroom model, a sub-compact sold everywhere but the US and Canada. The factory management were also bidding for production of the new

Volkswagen BlueSport The Volkswagen Concept BlueSport is a mid-engined roadster concept car produced by Volkswagen. It was introduced at the 2009 North American International Auto Show in Detroit. The Concept BlueSport follows on from a previous roadster concept car ...

roadster. None of these plans came to fruition. On July 1, 2013, car number 2,000,000 rolled off the assembly line, a Volkswagen Sharan 2.0 TDI Highline. In December 2016, the plant won the production rights for the new compact crossover,

Volkswagen T-Roc The Volkswagen T-Roc is a subcompact crossover SUV (B-segment) manufactured by German automaker Volkswagen since 2017. It is based on the Volkswagen Group MQB A1 platform, and positioned between the Tiguan and the slightly smaller T-Cross. Ov ...

. In March 2020, SEAT Alhambra is discontinued.

Production

Production by model

Current production

(Nov, 2017–present)

Former production

* Ford Galaxy Mk1 (May, 1995 - Feb, 2006) * SEAT Alhambra Mk1 (1996 - 2010) * Volkswagen Sharan Mk1 (May, 1995 - 2010) *

(2006 - Jun, 2015) * Volkswagen Scirocco Mk3 (Jun, 2008 - Oct, 2017) * SEAT Alhambra Mk2 (2010 - 2020) * Volkswagen Sharan Mk2 (2010 - 2022)

References

External links

AutoEuropa plant website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Volkswagen Autoeuropa Motor vehicle assembly plants in Portugal Car manufacturers of Portugal Volkswagen Group factories