The struggling car manufacturer Volkswagen One of the future options is to relocate Golf production from the main plant in Wolfsburg to Mexico, as manager magazin learned. “There are many scenarios during the negotiations. The Golf is a building block of a scenario,” says company circles.
However, the variant is not considered the most likely outcome of current considerations. Volkswagen only sold a good 10,000 Golf vehicles in North America in 2023. And the planned ID.Golf will not come onto the market until the end of 2028.
VW did not want to comment on the information. A works council spokesman spoke of speculation that was far from possible resolutions. The “Handelsblatt” first reported on the mind games. The Golf is considered by many – like the Beetle before it – to be the flagship model among VW models. The Golf is currently only manufactured for the global market at the company headquarters in Lower Saxony. In Mexico, the group has a factory in Puebla, which previously also built the Beetle for the North American market.
Fight over costs
Currently Management and employee representatives struggle in collective bargaining in Wolfsburg about cost reductions. This is primarily about labor and factory costs, with layoffs and factory closures being discussed.
Volkswagen is demanding, among other things, wage cuts of 10 percent. According to the company, this is necessary in order to be able to make future investments. The works council is primarily demanding a secure timetable for the coming years for concessions. The next round of negotiations is scheduled for the beginning of next week.
How the future models will be distributed among the factories is traditionally a topic at Volkswagen in the so-called planning round, which determines investments for the next five years. This time, the plants and the work to be distributed among them are also part of the collective bargaining negotiations because of the cost reductions planned by the company.
Poland is also being discussed for golf
If the Golf were to be discontinued, the employees would probably demand other models that would ensure future work in the plant. According to the information, another variant for Golf production is a VW plant in Poland. A so-called overflow production of the Golf from Wolfsburg was planned for the plant in Poznan anyway.
Both Mexico and Poland are considered more cost-effective than Germany. Tariff threats from the former and new US president Donald Trump (78) would be for exports to the USA probably hit both locations. It remains to be seen how long the combustion engine Golf from Wolfsburg will still be around. Volkswagen has prepared for a fundamental ban on combustion engines in the EU from 2035 and has invested a lot of money in new electric models. A new, high-volume electric model would therefore be possible at the Wolfsburg location, such as a fully electric variant of the Golf called “ID.Golf”.