Volkswagen’s Emden plant in Lower Saxony, Germany, will cancel 2 weeks of work shifts, according to foreign media Autocar. In addition, workers on the electric vehicle production line will have a 4-week summer vacation during July-August, and the total length of the production line is expected to be reduced to 6 weeks.
The Emden plant is one of four plants where Volkswagen currently produces electric vehicles in Germany, with the other three located in Zwickau, Hanover and Dresden.
Volkswagen has invested about 1 billion euros in electric car production at the plant, although the production process for fuel cars, including the Passat, will continue to be maintained.
The company’s first factory in Germany is located in the city of Kobe.
The company’s management committee, Manfred Wulff, responded to local media that out of the 1,500 temporary workers currently employed at the Emden plant, about 300 will not renew their employment contracts in August 2023. And while it was originally planned that the plant would begin production of the new ID.7 model in July of this year, employees were informed on Monday of the reduction in electric vehicle production, which has been pushed back to a production schedule “later this year.
▲ Photo shows the Chinese version of FAW-Volkswagen ID.7, source Ministry of Industry and Information Technology
Wulff said local demand for the all-electric model is 30 percent lower than originally planned, telling local media that “we’re getting a lot of resistance from customers in the electric vehicle space.”
Still, a spokeswoman for the plant claimed “we are confident that with the launch of the ID 7 at the end of the year, the plant’s utilization will increase again.
According to Volkswagen’s official 2022 sales announcement at the beginning of the year, it achieved total sales of more than 2,397,100 units in China and Hong Kong, with the new energy segment delivering more than 180,600 units for the year, up 51.6 percent year-on-year. The ID. family delivered 143,100 units for the year, up 102.9% year-over-year.
