A piece of Volkswagen’s Emden plant within the northwest of Germany will stay closed for six weeks, in response to a brand new report. Manufacturing facility staff on the electrical automobile strains will get an prolonged one-month summer time break, and one shift might be canceled for 2 weeks.

The data was supplied by Manfred Wulff, Emden plant’s head of the works council, to the German Press Company and Nordwest Zeitung (North West newspaper).

Affected fashions embrace the ID.4 electrical SUV and the upcoming ID.7 electrical sedan. We reviewed the ID.7 in April this yr. Manufacturing of combustion-engined fashions, together with the Passat, will stay unaffected.

Wulff additionally introduced a discount within the variety of plant staff. 300 of the 1500 short-term staff is not going to have their contracts renewed in August 2023. The workforce discount and prolonged holidays level to at least one conclusion: it’s a gross sales disaster.

Demand for EVs is down by 30 %, in comparison with unique manufacturing figures. Furthermore, potential EV consumers are displaying indicators of reluctance, Wulff informed Nordwest Zeitung. Manufacturing of the ID.7, initially slated for July 2023, has been pushed again to later this yr.

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Olaf Lies, the minister of financial affairs for the state of Decrease Saxony, informed the newspaper that Volkswagen’s choices in Emden have been “comprehensible.” To counter the gross sales stoop, he known as for a discount in value-added tax (VAT) and extra EV incentives.

Volkswagen Group gross sales have been up by 68 % in Europe in Q1 2023 yr over yr, whereas US gross sales elevated by a outstanding 98 %. Nevertheless, China gross sales have been down by a worrying 25 %, as it’s VW Group’s largest market, and likewise the most important plug-in automobile market by quantity on this planet.

Volkswagen introduced final yr that it had deliberate to take a position practically $1.1 billion in changing and retooling the Emden plant for MEB platform-based electrical automobiles. It employs 8,000 staff on the facility.

The model makes electrical automobiles at a number of websites throughout the globe, 4 of that are in Germany: Emden, Hanover, Dresden, and Zwickau. Its worldwide EV vegetation, the place primarily the favored ID.4 is made, are situated within the cities of Anting and Foshan in China, and Chattanooga, Tennessee within the US.