VW plant in Wolfsburg
The new brand boss promises that the delivery problems at the main plant will soon be history.
(Photo: dpa)
After the sharp drop in production caused by the crisis, the new VW core brand boss Thomas Schäfer sees opportunities for higher capacity utilization at the Wolfsburg main plant. “We are cautiously optimistic because everything is being done to be able to drive noticeably more stably in the second half of the year,” said the manager of the company magazine “Mitbestimmt” when asked whether catching up could succeed. “Despite the difficult situation for people, the suppliers from Ukraine can currently deliver more reliable cable harnesses again, and things are also looking better for semiconductors.”
Schäfer, who will also be responsible for the “volume group” with the subsidiaries VW passenger cars, Seat/Cupra, Skoda and light commercial vehicles in the group in the future, restricted: “But it is clear that there is a lot of uncertainty in the system.” Microchips and other supplier parts since the beginning of the war had slowed down production at VW headquarters considerably – other car manufacturers also had problems. Numerous shifts had to be cancelled.
Production missed target
According to Daniela Cavallo, head of the works council, Wolfsburg ended up well below the originally targeted target by the middle of the year. You are at just a third (190,000 units) of the old plan for 2022 of 570,000 vehicles, she said recently. In 2021, Volkswagen had completed less than 400,000 cars here due to the lack of chips – a low since the late 1950s.
Schäfer emphasized that the corporate purchasing task force does its utmost every day to replace canceled deliveries. In this way, batches of sometimes tens of thousands of missing components can be reordered elsewhere within a few hours. “It’s really a fight. (…) And these impacts, now mixed with China and the aftermath of the lockdown there – I’m rather cautiously optimistic.”
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Cavallo said: “It gnaws at everyone.” There are currently no more night shifts on most Wolfsburg assembly lines. And sometimes “the suspicion arises that the site is being deliberately shut down”. However, she made it clear that the employees needed trust in the management: “The company had just cut the night shifts and would then turn the corner again with extra shifts just a few months later. I really wish that we will soon know better what to expect.”
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