Valmet Automotive

In vehicle manufacturing, Valmet Automotive’s customer references include Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, Ford, Saab, Opel and Fisker.[3][4] Valmet Automotive has electric vehicles in series production since 2009.

In 2012 Marussia Motors and Valmet Automotive announced an engineering and manufacturing agreement on B2 sports cars.[5][6]

In July 2012, Daimler AG and Valmet Automotive announced a manufacturing agreement Mercedes-Benz A-Class for the Uusikaupunki, Finland, plant. Production began in August 2013. A contract for the production of the Mercedes-Benz GLC-Class was announced in November 2015. Manufacturing preparations involved plant restructuring worth tens of millions of euros and the hiring of around 2000 more personnel. The GLC production started in February 2017.[7] In March 2017, Valmet Automotive announced the manufacturing contract with Daimler AG for the next generation Mercedes-Benz compact cars.[8]

In engineering, Valmet Automotive's focus areas are EV (electric vehicle) solutions such as battery packs, and manufacturing engineering. The company offers components and complete vehicle projects.

In EV Systems, Valmet Automotive has two battery pack manufacturing sites, for large-scale automotive batteries in Salo, Finland, and for off-highway vehicles and industrial applications in Uusikaupunki, Finland.

The roof systems business line’s customer references include Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Mini, Renault and Bentley. The engineering office is located in Osnabrück, Germany, and the manufacturing plant in Zary, Poland.

In October 2018 the German manufacturer BASF announced that they would build a component factory for car batteries only 80 km from the Valmet Automotive car factory. For the moment (april 2020) the factory is also building up a line for EV batteries in the city of Salo Finland.

Saab-Valmet was established in 1968 as a joint venture of Finnish Valmet and Swedish Saab-Scania. The automotive plant was placed in Uusikaupunki, Finland and assembled only Saabs for the first eleven years. Between 1979 and 1985 Valmet also assembled Talbots; a total of 31,978 such cars were built in Finland.[9] Valmet were only really interested in building the compact Simca-Talbot Horizon, but the French company required Valmet to also assemble the larger (and slow selling) 1307 before they would license the Horizon.[10] Unlike Saabs, the Simca-Talbots were only meant for local consumption, although a clause in the contract allowed for the possibility of exports if parts made by the thirty local suppliers began to be exported to Talbot's main plants. Domestic parts content increased to thirty percent within a half year of manufacture commencing.[10]

In 1992 Valmet became the sole owner, and the company was renamed Valmet Automotive in 1995. From 1999 to 2010, the sole owner was Metso, after which Finnish Industry Investment and Pontos Investments bought 34% of the company's shares.[11] On November 4, 2010, Valmet Automotive bought Karmann’s roof-component sections in Osnabrück, Germany, and Zary, Poland.[12] The acquisition made Valmet Automotive one of the three biggest roof system manufacturers in the world. In January 2017, CATL became a 23,08% minority stakeholder in the company,[13] the other shareholders being Pontos and Tesi (Finnish Industry Investment). Soon thereafter, in March 2017, Valmet Automotive concluded the acquisition of Semcon's automotive engineering services in Germany and Spain, increasing its number of engineers to over 1000.

• Car models produced in Uusikaupunki, Finland
• 
  Saab 95
• 
  Saab 96
• 
  Saab 99
• 
  Saab 90
• 
  Saab 900 CD (Long Wheelbase Model)
• 
  Saab 900 Convertible
• 
  Saab 9-3
• 
  Saab 9-3 Convertible
• 
  Saab 9000
• 
  Lada 21093 EuroSamara Baltic
• 
  Talbot Horizon GL
• 
  Talbot Solara
• 
  Talbot 1510
• 
  Opel Calibra
• 
  Porsche Boxster
• 
  Porsche Cayman S
• 
  Th!nk City
• 
  Fisker Karma
• 
  Mercedes-Benz A-class
• 
  Mercedes-Benz GLC-class

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• Valmet Automotive company pages