Individuals are offended, vehicles aren’t promoting, and now for the primary time ever Volkswagen is prone to shut certainly 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 stated that it wished to cease manufacturing on the Q8 E-Tron – an €80,000 electrical SUV that hardly anybody in Europe can afford – and put the manufacturing unit up on the market. In the meantime, VW has been on the lookout for buyers or different workarounds, with the corporate now saying that not one of the 26 events provided any viable options for the way forward for the plant, as reported by Automotive Information Europe.
An inside search throughout the firm for future automotive manufacturing or various makes use of for the plant was additionally deemed fruitless, in keeping 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 instructed Automotive Information Europe. “We are going to proceed to pursue this in a trusting, goal, and truthful 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 vehicles, in comparison with 37,400 Q8 E-Trons final 12 months. This 12 months, Audi has delivered 23,900 autos.
However different points have additionally plagued the Belgian plant. For one, it’s situated on a railway line, making enlargement unimaginable, and there’s no physique store on website, that means imported physique parts must be provided from different crops. 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 unit employees employed there’ll probably lose their jobs, which is stirring up pushback from unions that argue that the corporate is simply too resistant to contemplate different presents. “The one factor they need to do is shut the plant as shortly as attainable.,” stated Ronny Liedts of the ACV-CSC union, as quoted in Automotive Information Europe. “Not one of the options work for them.”
Final month, enormous rallies blocked the Belgian capital over the potential closing of the plant, with unions warning of additional strikes and protests. Now, the manufacturing unit has change into an emblem for what protestors say is the actual downside: It’s not that folks don’t need to drive EVs, it’s that European automakers are specializing in giant SUVs that the common particular person can’t afford.
“Automotive producers wished to make massive earnings with electrical autos instantly and didn’t settle for that the transition part would generate fewer dividends and earnings,” Hillal Sor, a commerce unionist at Metallos FGTB, instructed Euronews. “So that they guess all the things 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 12 months, some 902,000 electrical vehicles have 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 unit by itself house turf.
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