Volkswagen’s state-of-the-art EV plant is on the brink of collapse
Volkswagen’s state-of-the-art EV plant is on the brink of collapse
People are angry, cars aren’t selling, and now for the first time ever Volkswagen is likely to close one of its factories in Europe.
“Car manufacturers wanted to make big profits with electric vehicles right away and did not accept that the transition phase would generate fewer dividends and profits,” Hillal Sor, a trade unionist at Metallos FGTB, told Euronews. “So they bet everything on large, very luxurious, very expensive models that European citizens cannot afford.”
Sales figures back this up: The first eight months of this year, some 902,000 electric cars were purchased in the European Union, representing only 12.6% of the total number sold. To support the EV transition, unions say that are pushing for more public funds. The European Parliament agreed last month to consider tariffs on Chinese EVs and other protectionist measures are on the table.
Meanwhile, VW’s massive production overcapacity at its German sites is forcing the company to consider, for the first time ever, closing a factory on its own home turf.
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This has all the hallmarks of bean counters making decisions over engineers and market analysts.