The Volkswagen brand is preparing its Germany-based production network for the future
30 Sep 2023 | 6515 Views | By Autocar Professional Bureau
The Group Board of Management informed the Supervisory Board of the Volkswagen Group about its vehicle allocation plans for the brand through 2028. In taking this step, the company has set its sites up for profitable capacity utilisation and the economic perspective of the coming years. Efficient vehicle allocation and increased ...
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The Group Board of Management informed the Supervisory Board of the Volkswagen Group about its vehicle allocation plans for the brand through 2028. In taking this step, the company has set its sites up for profitable capacity utilisation and the economic perspective of the coming years. Efficient vehicle allocation and increased productivity are key aspects of the performance program ACCELERATE forward | Road to 6.5 initiated by the brand.
Thomas Schäfer, CEO of the Volkswagen brand said: “Our industry faces complex challenges as it undergoes a transformation that is being conducted under difficult business conditions. It is all the more important that we prepare our individual plants and the Volkswagen production network in Germany for the future. Within the context of our performance program, this newly approved vehicle allocation plan will make a substantial contribution to a strong, competitive VW brand.”
Christian Vollmer, the Volkswagen brand Board of Management member for Production and a member of the Extended Executive Committee for Production, added: “We are using the transition to electromobility as an opportunity to reduce the complexity of our production operations and increase the efficiency of our plants even further. We are systematically bundling vehicles based on the same architecture across all brands in our plants. By doing so, we will save significant investments in the integration of different vehicle architectures. Rather, we want our plants to produce several different models on the technical basis of one vehicle architecture.”
General Works Council Chairwoman Daniela Cavallo said: “With the decisions for our domestic vehicle manufacturing VW plants, we have now taken an important step in the planning round. In doing so, even in difficult times, the company and the Works Council are demonstrating their ability to work together to find solid solutions that combine the best possible economic utilisation of the factories and clear prospects for our workforces. With that in mind, we are now moving on to the next stages for the planning round and the performance program.”
Apart from the ID.31– that is being ramped up in 2023 – the plant in Wolfsburg will produce a second electric model. Starting in 2026, large numbers of an all-electric SUV for the high-volume A-segment are scheduled to roll off assembly lines.
The plant will also make the Golf hatchback and the new Tiguan2 generation. Starting in 2025, the successor model of the Tiguan Allspace will be produced at the main plant as well. During the plant allocation planning, it was decided that there was no need to build an additional plant in Wolfsburg Warmenau. Instead, new electric models based on the SSP architecture (scalable systems platform), that will be introduced at the end of the decade, will be integrated into existing and modernised structures at the main plant.
Meanwhile, the Trinity vehicle project originally planned for Wolfsburg will go to the Zwickau plant and the Osnabrück plant is also scheduled to continue the partnership with Porsche in addition to its production of the combustion vehicles Arteon and T-Roc convertible.
The previous planning for all other German and international locations of the Volkswagen brand remain unaltered.