Persons are offended, automobiles aren’t promoting, and now for the primary time ever Volkswagen is more likely to shut considered one of its factories in Europe – the state-of-the-art Brussels plant that makes the Audi Q8 E-Tron.
Again in September, Volkswagen-owned Audi mentioned that it needed to cease manufacturing on the Q8 E-Tron – an €80,000 electrical SUV that hardly anybody in Europe can afford – and put the manufacturing facility up on the market. In the meantime, VW has been in search of traders or different workarounds, with the corporate now saying that not one of the 26 events supplied any viable options for the way forward for the plant, as reported by Automotive Information Europe.
An inside search inside the firm for future automotive manufacturing or different makes use of for the plant was additionally deemed fruitless, in accordance with the report. “It is very important me that we shortly create readability within the data and session course of and now focus additional on the social plan discussions,” Audi COO Gerd Walker advised Automotive Information Europe. “We’ll proceed to pursue this in a trusting, goal, and honest method.”
For one, we are able to’t overlook the dismal gross sales numbers for the Q8 E-Tron, with the 120,000-vehicle-capacity plant reaching its peak in 2022 with 47,900 automobiles, in comparison with 37,400 Q8 E-Trons final yr. This yr, Audi has delivered 23,900 automobiles.
However different points have additionally plagued the Belgian plant. For one, it’s situated on a railway line, making enlargement not possible, and there’s no physique store on web site, that means imported physique elements must be provided from different vegetation. The successor to the Q8 be made in Mexico, and Audi doesn’t plan to maneuver any new fashions to the Belgian plant.
The three,000 manufacturing facility employees employed there’ll possible lose their jobs, which is stirring up pushback from unions that argue that the corporate is just too resistant to contemplate different gives. “The one factor they wish to do is shut the plant as shortly as doable.,” mentioned Ronny Liedts of the ACV-CSC union, as quoted in Automotive Information Europe. “Not one of the alternate options work for them.”
Final month, big rallies blocked the Belgian capital over the potential closing of the plant, with unions warning of additional strikes and protests. Now, the manufacturing facility has turn into a logo for what protestors say is the actual downside: It’s not that individuals don’t wish to drive EVs, it’s that European automakers are specializing in giant SUVs that the common individual can’t afford.
“Automotive producers needed to make huge income with electrical automobiles straight away and didn’t settle for that the transition section would generate fewer dividends and income,” Hillal Sor, a commerce unionist at Metallos FGTB, advised Euronews. “So that they guess every thing on giant, very luxurious, very costly fashions that European residents can not afford.”
Gross sales figures again this up: The primary eight months of this yr, some 902,000 electrical automobiles had been bought within the European Union, representing solely 12.6% of the entire quantity bought. To help the EV transition, unions say which can be pushing for extra public funds. The European Parliament agreed final month to contemplate tariffs on Chinese language EVs and different protectionist measures are on the desk.
In the meantime, VW’s huge manufacturing overcapacity at its German websites is forcing the corporate to contemplate, for the primary time ever, closing a manufacturing facility by itself residence turf.
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