Individuals are indignant, vehicles aren’t promoting, and now for the primary time ever Volkswagen is prone 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 searching for buyers 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 automobile manufacturing or different makes use of for the plant was additionally deemed fruitless, in line with the report. “You will need to me that we shortly create readability within the info 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 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 yr. This yr, Audi has delivered 23,900 autos.
However different points have additionally plagued the Belgian plant. For one, it’s positioned on a railway line, making enlargement not possible, and there’s no physique store on website, which means imported physique elements must be equipped 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 facility employees employed there’ll doubtless lose their jobs, which is stirring up pushback from unions that argue that the corporate is simply too resistant to think about different provides. “The one factor they need to do is shut the plant as shortly as attainable.,” 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, enormous 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 develop into an emblem for what protestors say is the actual drawback: It’s not that individuals don’t need to drive EVs, it’s that European automakers are specializing in giant SUVs that the common particular person can’t afford.
“Automobile producers needed to make huge earnings with electrical autos straight away and didn’t settle for that the transition section would generate fewer dividends and earnings,” Hillal Sor, a commerce unionist at Metallos FGTB, advised Euronews. “So that they wager every part on giant, very luxurious, very costly fashions that European residents can’t afford.”
Gross sales figures again this up: The primary eight months of this yr, some 902,000 electrical vehicles had been bought within the European Union, representing solely 12.6% of the entire quantity bought. To help the EV transition, unions say which are pushing for extra public funds. The European Parliament agreed final month to think about 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 think about, for the primary time ever, closing a manufacturing facility by itself dwelling turf.
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