Turkey’s competition board has announced the launch of an investigation into VW, Audi, Porsche, Mercedes and BMW in order to determine whether the German carmakers violated the country’s competition law.
The competition board stated that findings regarding claims about these carmakers’ actions on security and environment cooperation, as well as sharing competition-sensitive information, were deemed sufficient as to merit launching an investigation, reports Autonews Europe.
The investigation was launched just after Volkswagen cancelled their plans to build a new multi-brand plant in Turkey, saying that poor car sales have resulted in existing plants struggling to operate at full capacity, hence the cancellation.
Related: VW Aborts Plan For New Plant In Turkey Amind Plunging Car Sales
The Wolfsburg-based company initially wanted to build its new plant in Manisa, 40 km (25 miles) northeast of Izmir on Turkey’s western coast. If construction would have gone through, then VW would have built the next-generation Passat and Skoda Superb there, starting in 2022.
The factory would have had a maximum annual production capacity of 300,000 units, and would have required an initial investment of around 1 billion euros ($1.12 billion) to get going.
It’s been reported that the all-new Passat and Superb will instead be made at VW’s Bratislava plant in Slovakia. Right now, V-Dub’s popular mid-size model is built in Emden, Germany, as far as European markets are concerned. However, that location will eventually be converted into an EV facility for the carmaker’s battery-electric ID family.
As for the Superb, it is currently being built locally, at Skoda’s Kvasiny plant in its native Czech Republic.
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