PSA Group in October will add a fourth shift to an assembly line at its factory in Vigo, Spain, to meet demand for the Peugeot 2008 small SUV.
The addition of the weekend shift means that the Vigo plant’s two assembly lines will both be working four shifts for the first time, PSA said in a news release. A weekend shift on the other assembly line was added in 2018.
The 600 additional employees hired to staff the shift brings the factory’s head count to 7,500 workers. The factory opened in 1958 and has a capacity of about 420,000 vehicles a year.
The new shift was to start in March but was delayed due to coronavirus shutdowns, PSA said. The shift will increase weekend production to 2,400 vehicles, with about half being Peugeot 2008s.
The second-generation 2008, based on PSA Group’s CMP platform, was launched in late 2019; a battery-electric version went on sale early this year. It has been a strong seller, with 19,773 sales in the month of July, a 56 percent increase over July 2019, and only a few hundred units behind the Peugeot 208, PSA’s No. 1-seller overall.
Workers returned to the factory after a summer break on Aug. 16, the UGT union said. The new shift will start on Oct. 10.
In addition to the 2008, the Vigo factory builds small car-derived vans for Peugeot, Citroen and Opel as well as for Toyota; the Citroen C4 SpaceTourer compact minivan; and the Citroen C-Elysee and Peugeot 301 small sedans for markets outside of Europe.
