The third car factory built by Shanghai Volkswagen with press shop, body shop, paint shop and assembly shop starts operations. On October 21, 2001 the joint venture "Volkswagen Transmission (Shanghai) Company Ltd." is set up for the manufacture of gearboxes for both the models on site. Volkswagen AG holds 60% of the company capital and thus the majority share in a German-Chinese production joint venture for the first time. On January 28, 2003, the newly built gearbox factory in Shanghai is opened. In this first construction stage, it has an annual capacity of 180,000 units.