Volkswagen has announced that it has built its 30 millionth Passat.
Produced at Volkswagen Group’s Emden factory, where the model has been built since 1978, the milestone vehicle was a GTE plug-in hybrid finished in Pyrite Silver and will be used as a press and test vehicle for the next few months.
This point helps confirm the Passat’s place at the top of the worldwide mid-sized car market and it even sits second in Volkswagen’s own all-time sales charts between the Golf at the top and the Beetle. The Passat’s been in production since 1973 and has been built at the firm’s Emden plant since 1978.
Ralf Brandstätter, Volkswagen chief operating officer, said: “The Passat is one of Volkswagen’s most important and most successful cars – since its launch 46 years ago, 30 million customers have had confidence in this Volkswagen vehicle.
“As a result, the Passat has become one of the world’s greats; a car which today is as much at home in Beijing as it is in Berlin, Sydney, Johannesburg or on the streets of San Francisco. At Volkswagen we are proud of this successful model, which is still the benchmark within its class today.”
Now in its eighth generation, the Passat comes with the IQ. Drive system, which incorporates semi-autonomous features into the vehicle’s setup and reduces stress on the driver.
