The automaker Volkswagencontinues the conversion of several plants for the production of Electric cars continues and invests in the necessary automation. The world’s largest car manufacturer has now ordered around 2,200 specialized robots that are to be used in the redesigned factories in Emden, Hanover and Chattanooga (USA). There you take on the battery assembly and body production. The core brand has around 1400 robots, and the VW commercial vehicles 800 robots.
The car manufacturer is converting various factories completely or in large parts from internal combustion engines to hybrid or pure electric models. In Zwickau, where the ID.3 and ID.4 are being made, this has essentially been completed. In Anting, China, e-production is also set to begin in 2020. Dresden will soon be added, and Emden, Hanover and Chattanooga in the US state of Tennessee will follow from 2022. While Emden is also being designed for the ID.4, Volkswagen plans to build the ID.Buzz electric bus at the last two locations mentioned.
“With the start of ID.Buzz, we will have completed the current modernization of our plant in Hanover, from which all other models at the location will also benefit,” said Josef Baumert, Member of the Board of Management for Production and Logistics at VW’s light commercial vehicles. The normal VW bus (transporter) is currently being built in the capital of Lower Saxony. The redesign of the site is on schedule, it said.
If you include the Chinese joint ventures, the VW Group will invest around 48 billion euros in expanding e-mobility up to and including 2024. A lot is also invested in internal supplies, for example in building our own battery cell factory in Salzgitter. A further 14 billion euros are invested in digital and software topics as well as in technologies related to autonomous driving. The updated investment plan for the coming years is expected in mid-November