The obsessive pursuit of Tesla dictates Volkswagen’s plans. The German company plans to build a new factory specifically for what will be its most technologically advanced automobiles near its headquarters, the historic Wolfsburg plant.
It is the answer to the imminent opening of the European gigafactory of the Californian electric car manufacturer, which on the stock market is worth 10 times Volkswagen despite producing, in 2021, less than one million cars against the 10 million of the second world manufacturer. The Tesla factory less than an hour east of Berlin has been opposed in every way by local communities and environmentalists, so that it has to postpone the opening from July to the beginning of 2022 (but we will have to wait for the outcome of a referendum on the theme, therefore the discourse is not closed). Yet it is very scary for the group led by CEO Herbert Diess, because it is able to produce a car in 10 hours against the 30 hours required in the Zwickau factory.
Approval from Volkswagen’s supervisory board is expected in the coming weeks. The plant would be part of the Trinity project, under which the automaker wants to build a flagship electric sedan, initially with autonomy level 2+ to reach 4, from 2026 on a new platform that would replace all the others in use today. . From the SSC, acronym for Scalable Systems Platform, the new electric Volkswagen group would be born, including the Seat and the Skoda, until 2035. But not the Porsches and not even the top of the Audi range.
Volkswagen, which did not provide a cost estimate for the factory, said it was aiming for a production time of 10 hours per vehicle for the Trinity model, just like Tesla in Gruenheide. The construction of a completely new plant is an alternative to adapting the existing plant in Wolfsburg, which would limit the possibilities for more radical changes to the production process. “That is why we are planning a construction greenfield: efficient and without limitations on the part of existing structures, ”said the CEO of the Volkswagen brand Ralf Brandstätter, who has been driving since June 2020 in a statement.
Brandstätter is one of the possible replacements for the Diess group CEO (among others, the names of Porsche CEO Oliver Blume, Audi CEO MarKus Duesmann, and head of technological innovation Thomas Schmall are circulating), who has landed in the eye of the cyclone since, according to rumors, he revealed to the top of the German company the need to radically cut the cost of labor by initiating 30 thousand layoffs. Today Diess has again denied having supported a similar thesis, however his fate is in the hands of a mediation committee after the harsh accusations of the union, reiterated five days ago by the leader of the works council, Daniela Cavallo, during a bitter confrontation in front of to workers.