German carmaker warns of stagnation in the European sector amid news of deeper-than-expected action
German carmaker warns of stagnation in the European sector amid news of deeper-than-expected action
The German carmaker Volkswagen is planning to shut at least three factories in its home country, lay off thousands of workers and cut pay by 10%, according to the company’s union.
The deeper-than-expected cuts come as the company faces weak sales and slow expansion in the electric vehicle (EV) sector amid tough competition from Chinese manufacturers.
“The board wants to close at least three factories in Germany,” the works council chief, Daniela Cavallo, told employees at VW’s headquarters in Wolfsburg on Monday. Its remaining manufacturing sites will reduce capacity, she said, citing information provided by management.
As Europe’s top economy suffers a crisis in manufacturing and fears of mass unemployment, VW is aiming for a fundamental restructuring to cut costs. It had initially warned last month that it had the equivalent of two factories of extra capacity in Germany.
VW has for quite a while now failed to read the writing on the wall and join in on the growing market for electronic cars. All the while getting subsidies from the german government.
Now they cant compete anymore and even their regular cars are way to expensive for a lot of germans to buy. And the chinese manufacturers are pushing them even further out of a market they failed to enter by refusing to innovate years ago.
A lot of this reads over here like hostage taking: They want more subsidies for their failing company model, or they leave the country.
Failing to read the market.. or shareholders wanting dividends rather than invest it in the companies future?
Alternatively, the German government nationalizes VW to keep the jobs, fires upper management and replace them with people that get the orders to make cheap/affordable EVs for the masses.
Alternatively, the German government nationalizes VW
Too late the state of Lower Saxony and the work's council together already have majority voting rights. By pure shares the Porsche/Piëch clan has a majority but the work's council gets 50% - 1 seats on the board (generally the case for big German companies) so they can't just dictate things.
That said the work's council previously did agree to a severe downsizing, back when automation swept the industry they agreed to introduce it, opposing it would've meant the end of the company, but made sure that the most back-breaking jobs got automated first, and that staff reduction was done with early retirement and a stop to hiring, not massive layoffs. Something like this may happen again but the way that the executive council is acting right now -- yeah I think their heads are going to roll. They're acting as if the company wasn't, ultimately, run by IG Metall (via works council and socdem state government).
The problem is the Chinese market, which has been a huge market for VW. That's where they failed to come up with a viable competitor to the cheap EVs that are selling like hotcakes in China. Yes, the U.S. sales have been lackluster but that's not what is driving VW's woes. The U.S. is a relatively small market for VW.
I feel like a huge mistake is making heavy, mega luxury EVs instead of pushing smaller-battery cars with a tiny (I'm talking like 2hp) backup generator.
I think the delusion that fuels this insanity is western car companies understand the future is no longer defined by visions of the car but they can't admit it. They can't make cheap, reliable ev commuter cars because from their perspective that would be admitting the truth they can not accept to themselves.
I don't even think this has to do with money, surely there will be big markets in ev vehicles long into the future, rather it is about something deeper, it is about refusing to participate in any future that doesn't unquestionably place cars at the center of it.
To western car execs a simple, reliable compact electric commuter car isn't a car, zero percent of them drive anything other than sports cars and massive trucks/suvs and they see one of the fundamental utilities of a car is to seperate them from the city of dirty working class people between their mansion and executive suite office who would benefit from most from said practical small electric commuter cars.
I think the delusion that fuels this insanity is western car companies understand the future is no longer defined by visions of the car but they can’t admit it. They can’t make cheap, reliable ev commuter cars because from their perspective that would be admitting the truth they can not accept to themselves.
Eh. Especially because (at least European) car companies understand that public transport is a thing they're focussing so damn much on upper market segments. "Commuter car" indeed does not feature in visions of the future, at least not prominently.
Right, they see the business of car sales as like horses for the rich and more crucially they see themselves as a luxury brand that associates itself with wealth via the inherent difficulty of owning and maintaining a large luxury car that excludes all but the rich. It is the same with Ralph Lauren and horses, polo in this case being analagous to the ridiculous high stakes driving fantasies luxury car commercials evoke.
I remember reading somewhere that they have a subsidiary that was made to implement the software needed to run EVs, and another something to do with batteries. Both of these subsidiaries have appeared to be massive failures, though the reasons weren’t stated in the article I read. Were they just badly funded? Or were the people hired there resistant to switching to EVs?