Half a century after the opening of the Gothenburg-based Torslanda plant, Swedish automaker Volvo inaugurated today the opening of its new TA3 body plant. The facility will be used to manufacture the all-new 2nd generation XC90 SUV, which will be officially launched at the end of the year and go on sale in the first quarter of 2015.
Almost half of Volvo’s ongoing $11 billion investment plan will be spent on developing the company’s all-new Scalable Product Architecture (SPA) and on the development of more economical Drive-E power plants. The work force of the new 24,000 square meters manufacturing facility will be comprised of approximately 300 robots and small teams of five to eight people.
“With the investment in a new body shop we are creating the potential to increase production capacity in Torslanda from today’s approximately 200,000 cars annually to 300,000 cars”, said Lars Wrebo, senior VP of Purchasing & Manufacturing.
In the last 50 years, Volvo’s Torslanda plant produced no less than 6,834,729 automobiles. It was built over a five-year span due to the rising demand for passenger cars in that era, a demand the old historic Lundby plant couldn’t cope with by itself. Currently, the factory is split into three different sections: the first one (TA section) manufactures body shells, the second (TB section) features a number of intermediate automated assembly processes, while final assembly is dealt with by the third (TC section).
