Volkswagen announces an $11.3-million investment in California
Volkswagen has announced an $11.3-million investment in California as the automaker works to recover from its emissions cheating scandal.
On Tuesday, VW said it would spend $4.5 million on a new training center in Eastvale, a small city near Riverside. It also announced that a new $6.8-million parts distribution center in Rocklin, northeast of Sacramento, had officially opened.
The Southern California training center, expected to launch early next year, will provide technology, collision repair and sales training for the company’s three brands: VW, Porsche and Audi. It will be the first to train personnel from all of the brands in the same location, the company said.
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VW didn’t say how many workers the Eastvale training center will employ.
In the wake of the emissions scandal that marred VW’s reputation, the company is remaking itself in ways large and small. All told, it has pledged to invest $7 billion in North America through 2019.
The 140,000-square-foot Rocklin distribution center will serve 94 VW and Audi dealers in Northern California and the Pacific Northwest and represents VW’s seventh such center in the U.S. An existing distribution center in Los Angeles is almost twice as large. About 30 people will be employed at the Rocklin facility.
California is “a priority market” for VW and Audi, said Jan Bures, an executive vice president at Volkswagen Group of America.
Beyond Volkswagen’s dealer network, California is home to a regional sales operations office in Woodland Hills, a test center in Oxnard and a research lab in Silicon Valley.
Twitter: @russ1mitchell
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