Most people don’t want electric cars. Even with government subsidies, tax rebates, and other incentives, they’re not buying enough of them. As a result, Volkswagen is having to cut production and reduce workers’ hours.
Many thanks to Hellequin GB for translating this article from Junge Freiheit. The translator’s comments are in square brackets:
Energy transition E-car market collapses: VW has to lay off employees
The demand is now so low that the group is also eliminating late shifts, cutting back the production of electric cars and extending factory holidays. Politicians are worried.
Wolfsburg/Emden
The crisis in the sale of electric cars has now also reached Volkswagen. Demand is 30% below the targeted production figures, said works council chief Manfred Wulff. The group therefore decided to throttle the production of the Stromer in its Emden plant. This is reported by the Nordwest-Zeitung.
This has serious consequences: the group has now laid off 300 temporary workers. In the next few weeks until the factory holidays, the car manufacturer will be cutting late shifts. The main focus is on the production of the electric SUV ID.4 and the production of the first vehicles of the recently introduced ID.7 sedan. VW has also postponed the ceremony to mark the launch of this electric car. The production of cars with combustion engines is not affected by the measures. [I guess they’ll have to change their “launching speech” to an “obituary” now.]
E-car production: VW extends holidays
In addition, VW extended the factory holidays in the electric segment by one week. “We notice the reluctance of customers in the ‘Electric car world’ very vehemently,” said Wulff. The workforce is sobered by the cuts.
VW is still optimistic: “We are confident that the utilization of the plant will increase again with the market launch of the ID.7 at the end of the year,” said a VW spokeswoman to the newspaper.
Lower Saxony’s Economics Minister Olaf Lies (SPD) said he was “concerned about the current dip in demand for electric cars — not just at Volkswagen, but at all manufacturers.” The politician now wants to create new incentives to buy. A discounted value added tax may also be considered.
Afterword from the translator:
Their claim was: the green economic miracle is enfolding before your eyes and will create a economy without bankruptcy! (Or something to that effect.)
The free market economy has made western Germany prosperous. The socialist planned economy in the east kept the Germans in the GDR economically at the level of the world war.
The secret of the market economy lies in the fact that it regulates itself without state intervention. They only produce what the customer wants, and if a company produces rubbish, it disappears from the market.
The socialist planned economy was reintroduced by Merkel. For example, the car industry was instructed to only produce e-cars in the future — which no sensible person would want.
The Traffic Light* potentiated all of Merkel’s wrong decisions once again and even tries to trump them.
To appoint as Economics Minister a socialist children’s book author who despises the German people and is obsessed with their green idiocy/ideology can only impoverish Germany. Anyone who voted for parties in the new National Front (CDU to LINKE) is partly to blame and deserves to lose their job. It’s too late to complain now. The bucket dropped and the milk is spilled. German industry is irretrievably disappearing towards USA, France and China.
Well done!
Although I do wonder where the veteran politicians will be looking for their place at the board of directors when VW isn’t around any longer?
| * | “Traffic light” coalition government: | |||
| Red: | Social Democratic Party | |||
| Yellow: | Free Democratic Party | |||
| Green: | Alliance90 / The Greens |
|||
It’s a crime against humanity, what they have done to the German Auto Industry.
I remember a time when nearly all German cars used to be “desirable”.
But today – I am looking at 30 year old VW’s and Mercedesses thinking – “my next car will be from the 1990’s again.
BMW is the worst of them all, IMHO. A BMW’s from the year 2000 were some of the best machines ever produced.
But the BMW of today – a piece of breaking down plastic toy…
Oh – and the electric cars also.
I have made myself an “electric motorbike. Out of an old bicycle – it goes 50kmh, and has a range of about 60 kilometers. The whole thing cost me 1200 Euro.
When you want to buy an electric scooter with the same speed and range, companies charge over 5000 Euro for machines with the same “performance”.
It’s all a lot of BS. Even the cost of these electric vehicles sold on the market is way over what it should be.
But why can’t I sell the contraption of mine?
Well – my “electric bike” is not “approved” by the “authorities” and therefore I can’t sell it.
All who buy electric vehicles basically pay 4x the price of production, IMHO, just because that vehicle is “approved to be sold” by the government.
I agree with you that German cars are no longer the epitome of quality they once were. The ones from the 70’s, and 80’s were the best they ever built. None of that electric and computerized garbage to break down.
exactly… “Reliability” used to be almost synonymous with German cars – at least here in Central Europe. They made the best “beater cars” – ran almost forever, and if they broke they would be easily repaired and drove on. Cars generally used to rust out, but never die. It’s not gonna happen with the brand new future plastic garbage.
Porsche is the exception. They’re expensive, but they’re also reliable and built well.
I actually had a 2000 BMW 520, and it was a nice car, but it had issues. My 2006 Mercedes also had issues. Both were made in Germany. Germany has been on a slide for a couple decades, largely because they’ve increasingly relied on guest workers/migrants while their declining pool of actual German youth all decided they were management material.
The sentiment behind “Kinder statt Inder” makes more sense now than ever, and it always did.
BTW, my Hyundai has run better, longer than my old German cars… Einwandfrei, they would say… and was far cheaper.
so VW is stuck at a red light that won’t be turning green for at least another six months. If I were VW, I would go ahead and run the red light and then deal with the police officer, if there is one.
Big sales of Chinese ones here. Electricity prices just went up by about 25% on the 1 July, yesterday, and I am still waiting to see how they go in a 40 deg C heat wave for 4 days LOL.
We’ll see how they love their electricity bills and repair bills. Repair bills will be massive, not as easy as petrol cars.
Don’t forget the tendency towards “spontaneous combustion”.
https://marineindustrynews.co.uk/ship-carrying-4000-luxury-cars-sinks-in-atlantic-after-fire/#:~:text=After%20burning%20for%20almost%20two,%2C%20Audis%2C%20Lamborghinis%20and%20Bentleys.
I disagree – electric vehicle is – in fact – much simpler to make than a petrol or diesel car, and the electric motors are much more reliable than internal combustion engines…
The only problem are the batteries, or – “reliable supply of electricity”, which cannot match the energy that’s hidden in fossil fuels…
As for how expensive the electric go carts are – I wonder if its the same like when the EU gave “subsidies” to all beekeepers to buy a honeycomb centrifuges.
Those centrifuges used to cost 1000 Euro. Then the EU gave 1000 Euro subsidy to every beekeeper to get that centrifuge “for free”, and in few months those centrifuges cost 2000 Euro. (I don’t remember the exact price – but it’s a true story)
The whole thing with electric is that it’s much more susceptible to disruption than gasoline or diesel fueled vehicles.
The cost of electricity can easily become far higher than traditional fuels, especially as the Europeans are learning after their foolish efforts to sanction the Russians. Also, and this is the key reason for me why I will not likely ever buy one, it is far easier for governments to control electric powered vehicles and disable them remotely. Most new cars have this feature, but electric are by far the worst in that it is a simple matter for the manufacturer to brick them remotely like a cell phone since these vehicles are always connected to the internet and software updates are pushed remotely. And if a manufacturer can do it then most certainly the police, the DMV, and any number of three-letter-agencies can do so for what will certainly be a never-ending list of reasons.
I truly miss my 1979 300D Mercedes that died prematurely from rust but had almost 300k miles on the odometer.
Yes well that’s what upsets me about the whole direction Car Industry has taken.
When I mentioned my “electric bike” that I made out of parts made in China for quarter of the “market price” – that bicycle of mine has just the motor, the motor drive unit, and the battery. I don’t need WiFi and 5G connection and bluetooth App for my phone to watch “diagnostics”…
If the EU (in my case) allowed electric vehicles to be just simple battery-drive unit-electric motor technology – every 15 year old could be building his own electric bike and have fun doing that.
But we all know – that’s not the plan.
Now they make “5G connected” gasoline cars as well…
That’s what I consider “crime against humanity” – I mean – the “technically minded humanity” – guys that could make their own cars if the “government” let them.
…I learnt to drive in 1969 mercedes 200d. That thing was rusted in and out, and all the holes were unskillfully plastered over with badly welded pieces of iron… But it ran like a tractor and still run when it was put in the scrapyard.
If we knew back then what the future holds for us, we’d never scrap that thing, and just hid it away in a barn for future, less civilised times 🙂
Where is “here”?
If you don’t know than you haven’t arrived
Most of the noise about battery-powered EVs—either way—is for naught because I reckon hydrogen fuel cells’re the future.
In the meantime, I continue to scratch my head as to why Musk hasn’t yet figured out that swapping-out discharged batteries for charged batteries—in the time it takes for a normal car’s fill-up—is the way to power EVs. Sitting idle next to a charger is….well, nonsensical, at best.
“The group therefore decided to throttle the production of the Stromer“…
Surely they misspelled that, it should be der Stürmer..?