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VW is considering axing as many as 30,000 jobs as it scrambles to save billions of euros amid a slowdown in the car market, German media has reported:
The carmaker recently announced it could close some of its German factories for the first time in history as it struggles to reinvent itself for the electric era.
Analysts at Jefferies said VW is considering closing two to three facilities, with as many as five German sites under threat, putting 15,000 jobs at risk.
[...] A VW spokesman said: "We do not confirm the figure. One thing is clear: Volkswagen has to reduce its costs at its German sites.
R&D will likely be hit hard:
While Volkswagen is staying tight-lipped on specifics, Manager Magazin suggested research and development could take a massive hit. If their numbers pan out, roughly 4,000 to 6,000 R&D employees could be cut from the current number of around 13,000.
Previously: VW Turns on Germany as China Targets Europe's EV Blunders
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Sunday September 29 2024, @01:11PM
Agree with all this 100%, except that me and family did generally keep our cars going. "Throwing money at them" is just what you will generally do no matter what you own (or its age) because cars are not an asset but a liability (and one that wears out as you use it). A car rarely used will cost you little , but it will also defeat the point of having it. Even a classic will lose its value if you actually drive it (which is why I suck at being a classic car collector, I love driving them too much).
Up until recently my dad drove his dad's 1968 Mercedes 280SEL, and I had a 1982 Porsche 944 (which was originally my dads). Cars that were rock solid reliable, had only the electrics needed to get the job done and you could keep them running indefinitely. It wasn't even very expensive to maintain them because in the words of our mechanic "they are a pleasure to work on". No need for expensive diagnostic software, no need to remove a ton of plastic nonsense to get at a sensor, everything was easy to reach and could be removed and re-attached with a set of screwdrivers, socket wrenches and spanners. Plus (at least with the Porsche) a lot of the parts were actual VW parts, with VW part numbers. Only the important bits (engine, transmission, suspension) were Porsche, the rest was the VW parts bin, which meant parts were cheap and plentiful. Porsche itself would still provide parts if you need them, but its very expensive to do so as they actually make them new for you special order.
We had to sell those cars because the whole family decided to move abroad and the cars were right hand drive so we could not take them with us. I still miss them, especially having had a look at what passes for modern cars nowadays.
Very true, if I had to buy a VW, I would probably by a Seat or Skoda instead. As you say, same car but cheaper. I am obviously in a minority in Europe but I care for a car brand mainly for what engineering talent it represents. I care not one jot if you slap a VW, Skoda or Seat badge on the same tin can of a car.
On one hand I agree, the EU shafts everyone industry or citizen alike. However huge rich automotive companies like VW could have pushed back, they could have lobbied and argued against it. They had the financial and legal might to do so, especially when all this mess started occurring in the 90s. However they didn't, they just meekly accepted some of the most bizarre and dumb rules on earth, knowing that it would ruin them.
Being forced to produce cars your customers don't want to buy is not a long term winning strategy, no doubt the EU will then try to force people to buy them by banning or regulating the alternatives out of existence but I don't think that will build a sustainable economy. Even if by sheer brute force and violence they succeed in making this work, none of those cars will be competitive in the global markets, so they will collapse sooner or later one way or another.
Perhaps a bit of history might help shed light on why things happened that way. Originally the company was set up as a grifting operation to milk the eco stupidiy of carbon credits for money, which became so successful in the first years of Tesla the joke in the industry was that the most profitable car company on earth was one that makes no cars. Then they changed the rules for carbon credits mandating that the car company actually make cars in order to qualify, so Tesla hired Lotus cars to build them the Tesla roadster (which was basically a Lotus Elise [wikipedia.org] with the ICE replaced with an electric motor and battery).
Now they technically made cars but didn't put much effort into it (keep costs down in order to maximise profit) but the anti-co2 people complained that electric sports cars were not helping the environment as it was seen as a "rich mans toy". So governments introduced subsidies for "normal" cars for everyday use and Tesla started making those.
The reason I explain the above is because in order for Tesla to originally make so much money on carbon credits, others had to lose money. Those who lost money were the established automakers such as VW. They were effectively forced to pay huge amounts of money to Tesla, who then built a large financial war chest they could use to finance the R&D to produce the cars they now do.
Still I can't say I ever understood why people buy Tesla's. I actually test drove the roadster when it first came out (I actually went to the Porsche showroom to get some parts, only to find Tesla opened a showroom next door with the roadster offering free test drives, presumably to entice potential Porsche customers away). It handled very well (being a Lotus) but I didn't get a thrill from the electric drive train. It just moved like a very fast milk float. I remember thinking "Congratulations Tesla, you made sports cars dull", quite frankly I would have preferred the original Lotus Elise. Electric sports cars make no sense to me, because the sounds, vibrations (even the smell) gives that feeling of excitement. Just going quickly is not that exciting (for proof of this, think about flying in an airplane: you're doing around 800km/h but most people are so bored they look for any distraction)
Even their mainstream cars to me demonstrate all I dislike in a car. Touchscreen controls, cheap plastic materials put together badly, in a car that has always on tracking and connections, full monitoring and recording all with third party control over the car. Plus when it goes wrong it may lock you out randomly, or lock you in randomly, or spontaneously combust (with you locked inside if you are unlucky).
I suspect the main reason they are popular is subsidies and "branding", because for all I complained about the triumph of branding over substance in my original post, it does seem to work. The old adage "a fool and his money are soon parted" rings true more often then not, especially if the government subsidises the foolishness. The other companies do it as well because the majority of people (at least in the EU and USA) don't actually seem to care about anything anymore, just appearances.