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.
It should be highlighted that the tough competition from Chinese manufacturers is on the Chinese market.
The increased tariffs won't help on that. VW simply got outcompeted in China.
VW is still the most sold brand in Europe. Every time BYD sells one car in Europe, VW sells 74 cars Europe. That's not the problem. It's that the Chinese market used to be the largest market for VW, but now the party is over after 40 years.
Exports are risky like that. It's difficult to blame the China for this when they have cheaper and more technology advanced vehicles available domestically.
I hope VW can see the writing on the wall and up their game, but I fear that this market won't ever come back.
In my opinion they should focus on going back to the core idea of making smaller and cheaper cars available to the people, instead of making luxury car exports.
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 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?
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Wiki: reliable - There is consensus that The Guardian is generally reliable. The Guardian's op-eds should be handled with WP:RSOPINION. Some editors believe The Guardian is biased or opinionated for politics. See also: The Guardian blogs. Wiki: mixed - Most editors say that The Guardian blogs should be treated as newspaper blogs or opinion pieces due to reduced editorial oversight. Check the bottom of the article for a "blogposts" tag to determine whether the page is a blog post or a non-blog article. See also: The Guardian.
MBFC: Left-Center - Credibility: Medium - Factual Reporting: Mixed - United Kingdom