The carmaker has been in heated discussions with unions after announcing this fall that it would have to take drastic measures to cut costs

Summary

Volkswagen CEO Oliver Blume faced boos from workers during a speech at the Wolfsburg plant as he defended cost-cutting measures, including potential plant closures and job cuts.

Speaking to 20,000 employees amid ongoing union walkouts, Blume emphasized the challenges posed by high manufacturing costs, sluggish EV sales, and competition from China, stressing that the company must adapt to a “rapidly changing environment.”

Unions and workers have been resisting these plans, intensifying tensions since the company announced its restructuring efforts in September.

  • BatrickPateman@lemmy.world
    32·
    13 days ago

    It definitely has been, given the cars they came up with in the recent past. Like many other established car manufacturers they lived the fantasy of “expensive EVs are better for the margin”, where the real world demands smaller and more affordable EVs.

    • sexy_peach@feddit.org
      14·
      13 days ago

      It’s embarrassing that they think they’re better off without the lower margin products. Obviously someone else is going to step in and use the know how learned to also start building higher margin cars… Like high schoolers could understand this. But because the CEOs and managers focus on earning more money per point the brand is worth they make the totally wrong decisions for the medium-term. Not even speaking about the long term…

    • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
      4·
      13 days ago

      They couldn’t make inexpensive EVs profitable. They couldn’t even make expensive EVs profitable for a long time.

      They didn’t have the know how. You can’t just expect them to build a car that they can sell millions of, but because it’s a terribly made EV because they don’t know how, to lose money on each one and go bankrupt.

      Even BYD isn’t making a lot of money on their EVs yet either and they use their own batteries. They make most of their car money on the plug in hybrids.

      GM made the bolt, and it was a money pit. They used that to learn more and make other cars which were also money pits. In theory these next gen GM cars won’t be money pits, but it took all those other ones to get there. But they couldn’t sell millions Bolts every year, it’d bankrupt them.

      Then you even have Tesla, the most profitable EV maker, saying for years, they can’t even make an affordable smaller vehicle profitable for more years as well. What makes you think VW can if Tesla is struggling and only about to come out with something cheaper in 2025? Tesla is the most profitable BEV maker, so they know how to do something with EVs.

      Deiss the old CEO at VW was warning them these cuts were going to be needed years ago to weather the upcoming storm and they kicked him out and said no. That delay has made things even worse for VW. Now the leopards feast.