Volkswagen - the world's fourth largest carmaker - will decide on whether to build a new assembly plant in the United States by June, Jochem Heizmann, the head of group production told German magazine auto motor und sport.
"A plant in the USA is an important statement for
our sales strategy," he told the magazine.
"A decision has, however, not been made yet.
"This should happen in the first half of 2008," Heizmann said in the interview.
"If we build on a green field - as would be the case in the USA - it would take us about three years."
Volkswagen's production chief added that the company was in the process of making a deal with Malaysian carmaker Proton.
Under the deal the two companies would jointly build small cars for the Southeast Asian market.
That deal could also come in the first half of next year, Heizmann said.
He said that production capacities in the Volkswagen plants were essentially fully utilised.
The utilisation rate was calculated at more than 90 per cent since the company wants to have some breathing space to account for seasonal patterns and the lifecycles of its products.
In the interview he said: "We calculate this based on 236 working days a year with a three-shift opera-tion.
"Were we to use Toyota's method based on 250 days and a two-shift operation, then our utilisation rate would be clearly above 100 per cent," he said.
The manufacturing depth of Volkswagen plants were between 30 and 40 per cent depending on the site or the brand of model produced.
Heizmann also said that the company had decided to insource production of front-axle modules.
The carmaker reversed its earlier plans after an examination of the costs found that it was actually cheaper to build the systems in its western German plants - despite the wages being higher over there, he said.
"Instead of being purchased externally, in the future these will be manufactured in our plant in Braunschweig," he said.
- Reuters
