Volkswagen Investing $1 Billion To Convert Zwickau Plant To EV-Only Production
Volkswagen AG will be investing around €1 billion to fully convert its manufacturing facility in Zwickau, Germany, to electric vehicle production over the next 5 years. This is part of a broader €22.8 billion investment package for 2018–2022.
Production of Volkswagen Golf and Passat models now occurring at the Zwickau facility will be moved to Wolfsburg and Emden, with the production of all-electric Volkswagen ID units slated to begin by 2020.
Volkswagen ID production is now expected to initially total around 100,000 units a year in 2020 — with a total of around 1 million ID series vehicles expected to be produced by 2025. For a little perspective on that, Tesla is currently producing approximately 100,000 Model S and Model X luxury vehicles per year, and it aims to reach approximately 500,000 Model 3 electric cars per year in 2019 or so.
Inside EVs provides more: “Electrification has become an important topic of discussion for Volkswagen of late, but we still find that the overall goals doesn’t seem that big for the next 7 years (compared to even the most popular standalone models — like the Tesla Model 3 and Nissan LEAF), and the investment into conventional and hybrid cars is still substantially bigger: ‘Volkswagen is investing €2.9 billion in Wolfsburg in order to pool production of the next-generation Golf at the plant, among other items. At Emden, the total investment with a view to concentrating production of the Passat family at the plant from the end of 2018 will be about €1.1 billion.'”
It’s hard to argue with that assessment. And yet Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess claims: “The investment package which has now been adopted will give a decisive boost to the largest product and technology offensive in the history of the brand. It is our objective to position Volkswagen sustainably in the lead in the volume segments and to take up a leading position in e-mobility.”
Will 1 million electric vehicles sold by 2025 truly represent a “leading position in e-mobility,” though? Going by those numbers, it would seem likely that Volkswagen will fall behind a large number of others companies.
Top photo by Nicolas Zart, others by Volkswagen
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