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VW’s Emden plant faces uncertainty as Lower Saxony premier pushes for more electric cars
🇩🇪 Germany /Economy & Trade

VW’s Emden plant faces uncertainty as Lower Saxony premier pushes for more electric cars

From Die Zeit · () German

Translated from German and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

Newswire Named sources Ongoing story
  • Lower Saxony Premier Olaf Lies said Volkswagen’s Emden plant has a clear future in building more electric cars despite proposed company-wide savings.
  • The plant employs about 7,700 people and remains the region’s most important industrial employer, but VW has not identified competitive production for the 2030s.
  • Volkswagen is already reducing 50,000 jobs by 2030 and is considering further cuts, while the works council wants promised follow-up models for Emden.

Lower Saxony Premier Olaf Lies said he could not imagine Volkswagen stopping car production at its Emden plant, even as the automaker considers deeper savings and further job cuts.

After visiting the East Frisian site with state Education Minister Julia Willie Hamburg, works council representatives and IG Metall, Lies argued that Emden should build more electric vehicles. Volkswagen invested billions of euros to convert the plant to all-electric production, but the factory still has unused capacity, he said.

For me as minister president, it is not conceivable that we would no longer build cars here.

— Olaf LiesThe Lower Saxony premier defended continued vehicle production at Volkswagen’s Emden plant.

“For me as minister president, it is not conceivable that we would no longer build cars here,” Lies said. “There is still room here. We can build more electric cars here.” He also called for a “very quick signal” that electric-car production in East Frisia has a future at Volkswagen.

Lies and Hamburg sit on Volkswagen’s supervisory board as representatives of Lower Saxony. The board is due to meet on Friday, according to media reports. Lies described electric mobility as a growth market and said Volkswagen remains Europe’s market leader. Producing additional vehicles could improve capacity utilization at its plants, he said.

There is still room here. We can build more electric cars here.

— Olaf LiesLies argued that unused capacity could support additional electric-vehicle production.

Volkswagen plans to cut 50,000 jobs by 2030, but Chief Executive Oliver Blume’s management board believes that reduction is not enough. Tens of thousands more jobs could be eliminated. Emden, Hannover and Zwickau, along with Audi’s Neckarsulm plant, face uncertainty because VW says they lack competitive production plans for the 2030s.

Works council chair Daniela Cavallo said workers, the council and IG Metall had honored the 2024 labor agreement through agreed job cuts and cost reductions. She said management must now keep its promise to provide follow-up products in Emden when current models end.

The workforce, the works council and IG Metall have delivered, and now we rightly expect the management board to honor its commitment.

— Daniela CavalloThe Volkswagen works council chair said employees had met the terms of the 2024 labor agreement.
About this summary

Originally published by Die Zeit in German. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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