It’s the big discussion at Volkswagen: What will happen to the main plant in Wolfsburg? The clinker buildings that open up on the Mittelland Canal bear witness to the long tradition of production. First they built the Beetle here, then the Gulf. The eighth version is now on the market. But what comes after that? Internal combustion cars will come to an end in the foreseeable future, because the regulations in the EU and in the rest of the world demand it and, at the same time, Chinese and US competitors are offering ever more attractive battery vehicles. In any case, the workforce is concerned about the uncertain future, especially since CEO Herbert Diess repeatedly complains about the lack of efficiency in the core brand’s plant. This is one of the reasons why the situation at Volkswagen escalated again a few days ago.
Now, for the first time, VW brand boss Ralf Brandstätter has made a plan public about how the transformation should take place in this plant. In conversation with the Süddeutsche Zeitung He drew up two possible scenarios for building electric cars in Wolfsburg in the future: On the one hand, the open-heart conversion. Like BMW does in Munich, for example, where an electric car factory is operated into the main plant in a difficult process, while operations are still ongoing. That is possible, says Brandstätter, but he prefers a more radical solution: a new building on the green field near the plant. Fully optimized for the production of the Trinity e-car model, as the second generation of e-cars from the VW brand is called. “We need four square kilometers, they will be found,” he says. In the past six months, both were played through, the decision is to be made in the so-called planning round of the VW supervisory board at the beginning of December.
The goal: to build electric vehicles in ten to eleven hours
Brandstätter probably suspects that a completely external new building would be a painful symbol for the employees in the main plant and that they could see it as a vote of no confidence. Because CEO Diess attests that the entire site – both plant and administration – has an encrustation that needs to be broken up. This also includes the 14,000 of the 60,000 Volkswagen employees in Wolfsburg who currently manufacture the Golf, Tiguan and Taracco from the Group’s sister company Seat. And so his colleague Brandstätter not only advertises the solution he prefers, but also includes the existing parent plant in his “target image” – in a second step.
“A completely new plant would save us the time-consuming tidying up and tidying up and we could then also show that we can keep up in terms of efficiency,” says Brandstätter. If building were done on the green field, then from 2026 the Trinity vehicles could roll off the assembly line in ten or eleven hours. That is the outstandingly high production efficiency that Volkswagen’s biggest competitor Tesla is aiming for in its new plant in Grünheide.
And a little later – in a second step – a second Trinity production would be set up in the main plant, which could start around the year 2030. Two of the four combustion lines would be dismantled for this. That would work out well, according to Brandstätter, because the demand for combustion cars will probably decline significantly during this period anyway – by the beginning of the 2030s, combustion engine production will be phased out completely.
Always looks a bit like Gotham City from the “Batman” series: The VW parent plant in Wolfsburg with its clinker brick power plant chimneys.
(Photo: Rainer Jensen / dpa)
The VW manager then also addresses the crucial point: The employee representatives are involved in these considerations, says Brandstätter. Everyone is also aware that fewer staff will be needed if the production time for e-cars is more than halved in the future: ten hours for Trinity instead of 25 for the Golf. However, this can be cushioned by manufacturing more parts yourself instead of having them delivered to you. In addition, not all jobs would be filled when VW people retire. In fact, VW works council boss Daniela Cavallo also speaks of the fact that the plans are “brave and therefore just right”.
Sounds like a well thought out plan. And yet there is one more problem: there is still a long way to go until 2026. What if the demand for the Golf drops significantly earlier? That is the concern of the works council, which is why it is calling for another, earlier electric car project for Wolfsburg. Brandstätter is now ready to talk about this. The Trinity project can hardly be brought forward because it is a completely new generation of vehicles with completely different electronics and software that are only just being developed, he says. In principle, however, it is possible for an e-car from the ID family, which has already been launched, to settle in Wolfsburg, says Brandstätter, and the conversion of the factory will cost a three-digit million amount. “We are discussing this with the works council. But one thing is clear: it has to be economical,” says Brandstätter.