Overview
- The company confirmed on Thursday that a new “Future Plan” will gradually shrink the group’s model lineup by up to 50% and reduce annual production capacity to about nine million vehicles.
- Volkswagen reported deliveries fell about 8.6% in Q2 with China shipments plunging roughly 36%, a decline company officials say has sharply weakened profit margins.
- Management has reportedly proposed cutting as many as 100,000 jobs and closing four German plants, but those proposals failed to win approval from labour representatives on the supervisory board and remain unconfirmed.
- As part of the announced measures Volkswagen will cut option and trim complexity by up to 75% and harmonise platforms, electrical architectures and software to lower costs and speed development.
- Germany’s co-determination system gives unions and the state of Lower Saxony major influence on any restructuring, which has driven worker protests and means deeper job and factory cuts will require prolonged negotiations or political compromise.