WEG invests €28m to build a gearbox factory in Turkey
9 January 2025 
The Brazilian motors and automation manufacturer WEG is investing around €28m to build a new gearbox manufacturing facility in the Izmir region of Turkey. The 12,000m² plant, due to be completed by 2027, will boost the company’s capacity for manufacturing gearboxes and components outside of Brazil.
The factory is being built in the city of Manisa, around 35km from Izmir, where WEG recently acquired Volt Electric Motors. Sales from the gearbox plant may be integrated with the industrial motors that WEG manufactures in the country. The operation will also have synergies with WEG’s existing gearbox manufacturing facility in Austria (the former Watt Drive business, which it acquired in 2011).
“We are optimistic about the growth potential of the industrial gearbox market in Turkey and across Europe,” says Rodrigo Fumo, managing director of WEG’s industrial motors business. “This investment is a strategic step in our journey to expand our presence in the sector, strengthening our commitment to excellence in service, agility in deliveries and innovative solutions that meet the needs of our customers.”
WEG has been selling products through local distributors in Turkey for more than 20 years. In 2021, it established its own local commercial structure and, in 2022, opened an electric motor factory in Dilovasi, near Istanbul. WEG currently employs 750 people in the country, and the new investment is expected to create 150 more jobs.
Following WEG’s acquisition of Volt Electric Motors in September 2024, a ceremony was held in December to mark the integration of the newly-acquired business. Volt, established in 1987, can produce one million motors a year. The acquisition takes the total number of WEG production facilities around the world to 64.
The integration of Volt Electric Motors into WEG is set to expand not only its industrial motors portfolio, but also to strengthen its presence as a key player in the region.
Marco Antonio Campos, managing director of WEG Turkey, highlighted the strategic importance of Volt’s location at the merger ceremony. “İzmir is not only one of Turkey’s largest industrial and logistics hubs but also home to two major ports,” he pointed out. “This enhances WEG’s ability to access key markets such as Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia, and North Africa more quickly and efficiently, both by land and sea. This unification marks a significant milestone in WEG’s global growth strategy.”
• WEG recently inaugurated a new manufacturing site in Santo Tirso, Portugal, where it will produce medium- and high-voltage motors and drives, and offer services for WEG and third-party motors, drives, transformers and generators. It will cut delivery times for products and services, and serve markets in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East, offering a more efficient and reliable supply chain. It will also serve as the headquarters for one of WEG’s R&D centres, specialising in hazardous area motors.
The Portuguese site – spanning more than 100,000m2, 45,000 m2 of which are covered – marks an important step in WEG’s European expansion strategy, increasing its competitiveness in the region.
As well as manufacturing and R&D facilities, the site also houses a High Voltage Solutions centre, which includes a 12MVA laboratory designed to make combined motor and drive testing more efficient and precise, and establishing a new global benchmark, according to WEG. The site is powered entirely by renewable energy.
