Trinity from Zwickau
E-Golf in Wolfsburg – VW distributes models to the factories
September 29, 2023, 4:31 p.m
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Volkswagen has renewed the plans for its production facilities, thereby providing clarity for tens of thousands of employees. For the works council, the focus remains on the headquarters in Wolfsburg – this is where the E-Golf is manufactured on the new platform. Zwickau is also being strengthened.
The car manufacturer Volkswagen has decided on the production sites for several planned models and has also finally said goodbye to building its own factory for the Trinity electric car project. According to the company, the supervisory board decided that there was no need for a new building. Instead, new electrified models based on the uniform SSP (Scalable Systems Platform) platform, which will be launched at the end of the decade, would be integrated into the structures of the main plant. According to the current status, the Trinity model is going to the Zwickau plant, where several electric vehicles are already being built. The new electric Golf as the successor to the ID.3, however, is manufactured at the headquarters in Lower Saxony.
After determining the occupancy of individual plants, the necessary budgets will now be determined, said a spokesman. Christian Vollmer, the production director responsible for the brand, said the switch to electromobility would be used to reduce the complexity of production. Vehicles based on the same architecture would be bundled across brands in the factories.
VW speaks of the planning status
The Trinity electric car was actually supposed to come onto the market in 2026. Shortly after taking office, Volkswagen boss Oliver Blume pushed the project back by two years in order to relieve the ailing software subsidiary Cariad. The fact that Trinity is going to Zwickau makes her happy for her colleagues there, said works council leader Daniela Cavallo in a special edition of the works council newspaper “Mitbegehen”. It is therefore clear that the Wolfsburg plant with its central SSP products will retain its key group-wide role in terms of technology and volume – “with flexible, state-of-the-art and economical production in the existing plant.” VW, however, dampened the euphoria and spoke of a “planning status” that could still change.
Cavallo went on to say that an important stage of the planning round had been completed; Now the performance program is also being addressed. Volkswagen announced a performance program in June to trim profitability within three years. The volume brand is expected to increase the return to 6.5 percent by 2026 from the 3.6 percent that VW achieved in 2022. Around ten billion euros are to be freed up for this through efficiency improvements and savings. A company spokesman said details would be discussed with employees and implemented in the next few weeks. A corresponding program has been running successfully at Porsche for several years.
The ID.3 is currently being produced in Zwickau and Dresden, and final assembly is also scheduled to begin in Wolfsburg this year. An electric SUV the size of the VW Tiguan will also be added to the main plant in 2026, as VW had already announced at the end of 2022. The new electric Golf would then be added. Both models are part of brand boss Thomas Schäfer’s strategy to convert well-known models such as the Golf, Tiguan and GTI into electromobility. According to the works council, the successor to the Audi Q4 e-tron, which is already being built there, will also be built in Zwickau, Saxony. According to the announcement, the Osnabrück plant wants to continue its cooperation with Porsche – in addition to producing the current Volkswagen combustion vehicles Arteon and T-Roc Cabriolet.
Audi withdraws model projects from Hanover
Meanwhile, VW subsidiary Audi is withdrawing its planned top electric model from Hanover, which should be built there from 2026. Instead, production of the vehicle will begin at its own factory in Neckarsulm, said an Audi spokeswoman. The model was part of Audi’s previous “Artemis” project. According to the works council in Hanover, VWN should instead develop its own vehicle family called Space. In return, VWN will receive its own electric platform from the group based on the future group architecture SSP.
Originally, VWN even received the contract for three electric models from Audi, Porsche and Bentley, which were to be developed together in the Audi “Artemis” project. But the start of production, initially planned for 2024, was delayed several times and Porsche withdrew from the project at the end of 2021. Audi no longer gave an exact date as to when production of the vehicle should start in Neckarsulm.
“With the planning for the Hanover plant presented to the Supervisory Board today, efficient vehicle occupancy will be achieved,” said VW Commercial Vehicles boss Carsten Intra. “In addition, the location agreement for Hanover will be extended until at least the end of 2032.”