Status: 11/10/2021 9:15 a.m.
VW wants to build a completely new plant for its Trinity electric car project on the green field near Wolfsburg. A factory based on the Tesla model is planned in Grünheide.
In competition with the US automaker Tesla, Volkswagen wants to build its own plant for its fundamentally new Trinity electric model. The factory is to be built near the headquarters in Wolfsburg, as Europe’s largest car company surprisingly announced yesterday evening. “The new factory is to be built on the green field outside the factory fence.” Various locations in the surrounding area could be considered for this.
“This will enable us to turn Wolfsburg into a global beacon for the most modern and efficient vehicle production within five years,” explained VW brand boss Ralf Brandstätter. A final decision has not yet been made. The supervisory board must finally approve the decision. The next meeting is scheduled for December 9th.
Will Wolfsburg now become the new Grünheide?
With the planning of his own electric car factory on the green field near Wolfsburg, VW boss Herbert Diess is once again emulating Elon Musk. The Tesla boss set up a gigafactory near Berlin within a short time. According to Musk, the first electric cars will roll off the production line in Grünheide before the end of the year. A final approval for this is still pending.
The fact that Tesla is the standard of orientation for Diess in important points is also made clear by a statement by its brand boss Ralf Brandstätter: “A production time of ten hours per car is probably feasible on the planned Trinity lines.” Ten hours – that’s how much time Tesla needs for a car. VW currently needs about three times as long for this in its e-car plant in Zwickau.
Trinity project is scheduled to start in 2026
Volkswagen’s Trinity project is expected to start fully in 2026. This is a completely redesigned vehicle system in which modern electric drives and largely self-programmed software, networking and autonomous driving technologies from VW are to be used. A total of more than 40 million cars are to be built on this technical basis.
It remains to be seen whether Diess will manage to appease his internal critics with the planned new factory. In any case, the works council first welcomed the project. “With the construction of a second plant in Wolfsburg secure employment like here,” said works council chief Daniela Cavallo.
The works council had recently criticized the fact that the CEO did not have a sufficient strategy for greater utilization of the Wolfsburg location. In mid-October, alleged statements by Diess caused unrest, according to which up to 30,000 jobs in Germany could be cut due to the switch to electric vehicles.