Volkswagen has announced the establishment of a new company in Rwanda, revealing plans to build a production facility in Kigali with an initial annual capacity of 5 000 vehicles as well as roll out a fresh community car sharing project.
In a statement, VW said that the facility would begin production in 2018. While the German automaker didn’t specify exactly which vehicles it planned to build in Rwanda, it did say that its product portfolio would initially include the Polo hatch, the Passat, another unidentified sedan and “possibly” also the Teramont large SUV.
The newly established company, called Volkswagen Mobility Solutions Rwanda, would operate under the auspices of Volkswagen Group South Africa, which is responsible for the Sub-Saharan African Region and already builds the Polo and Polo Vivo at its Uitenhage facility.
The project is being billed as an “integrated automotive mobility concept”, which is a first for Volkswagen worldwide.
“Our studies are complete, we believe that we have a business case that will work and we are now ready to commence with the implementation of our plans for Rwanda,” said Thomas Schaefer, chairman and managing director of Volkswagen Group SA.
“In short, after today, there is no going back; we are now fully committed to implementing our unique integrated automotive mobility solution in Rwanda together with Rwandans,“ added Schaefer.
VW said that the first service to be offered would be community car sharing (set to launch in the second quarter of 2018), with around 150 vehicles expected to be in service “within a few months”. This would be followed by a ride-hailing service later in the year, with public car sharing set to be added in 2019. A shuttle service and a peer-to-peer car sharing service were also part of the plan.
VW said that it chose Rwanda for the project since the country enjoyed “political stability and zero tolerance for corruption”, along with “dynamic economic growth” and a “young and tech-savvy population”.
The news comes after a recent report suggested that Volkswagen was “exploring” the possibility of producing a small SUV in Kenya, where it already assembles the Polo Vivo.
