Volkswagen There is a risk of massive production losses for the next few weeks and maybe even months. According to the company, the floods in Slovenia and the resulting standstill at a subcontractor for gear rings will probably lead to significant delivery bottlenecks, especially for the volume brands VW, Seat and Škoda.
Group tries to find alternative suppliers
The parts from Slovenia would be required for the production of a central gearbox for combustion engines. The group is trying to find alternative suppliers. However, it will take some time to ramp up production at these companies so that the losses can be completely compensated for.
The “Business Insider
” had previously reported that Volkswagen is sending its employees at the Wolfsburg main plant on short-time work due to a lack of parts. The measure applies from September 11 to 29, confirmed group spokesman Andreas Meurer (65) on Monday. There are also isolated shift failures at the VW plant in Emden The stock market has yet to react to the news.
The interruption of production is planned for the first half of September and will last a few weeks. According to the communiqué, the VW Group is “working together with other suppliers to find alternatives so that the affected plants can return to normal production as quickly as possible”. At the end of August, a VW plant near Lisbon was already in production stopped for nine weeks because of the flood damage in Slovenia.
According to its own statements, the VW subsidiary called Autoeuropa is one of the largest foreign industrial investments in Germany Portugal. In 2021, Autoeuropa accounted for 1.5 percent of economic output and 4 percent of Portuguese goods exports. The compact SUV T-Roc has been built in Palmela since 2017.
More failures could follow
Heavy rain with flooding raged in Slovenia at the beginning of August. The EU country is home to many automotive suppliers. According to the company spokesman, further shift failures could follow.