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General => General discussion => Topic started by: fredgroves on 07 September 2024, 09:56
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Don't know if you've all seen this but it looks like VW's days might be numbered...
https://www.theguardian.com/business/article/2024/sep/07/an-earthquake-at-volkswagen-and-a-crisis-for-germany
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I’d not seen that article, although I did see a similar, very condensed article that was posted on golfmk7.com forum a few days ago.
The whole car industry is going through tumultuous times; ongoing strategic changes by vehicle manufacturers around EV their development and production plans, cheap Chinese imports, reduced customer demand to name but three factors.
I think it’s inevitable that large companies such as VW need to make cost efficiencies for the sake of their long term survival, and unfortunately that may mean downsizing.
Interesting times……….
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Yes I've read a few different versions of the story but that one had some interesting details.
I only learnt this week that Wolfsberg was originally called Stadt des KdF-Wagens bei Fallersleben... And it was basically a car plant and a whole supporting town for the workers built from scratch (by the Nazis)
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My hypothesis (for what it’s worth) is that the vast majority of 20 - 40 year olds don’t care about cars, they are a commodity, not something that is a pleasure and an aspiration to own. 45 ish years ago myself and all my mates couldn’t wait to pass our Driving Tests and buy a car, now kids prefer an Uber or an EV that’s about as exciting to own as a fridge. Price wise, it’s race to the bottom that the SE Asian countries will always win. Very sad IMO☹️
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It definitely has nothing to do with their poor designs, high prices, cost cutting and over saturation of the same cars but on the stilts.
I rarely see a T-Roc on the road let alone a T-Cross which is smaller again same with all their tiny SUV's. They need to slim down their product range and keep the core cars: Polo, Golf, Passat, Tiguan, Touareg, Transporter. Ditch the dopey looking electric ones and make them look normal cars rather than ugly spaceships.
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Don’t know where you live, but round here I see nothing but T-rocs, T-cross, Tiguans, and the seat and Skoda alternatives. I see almost no polos, and golfs are getting thinner on the ground.
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Round my way there is a huge preference for SUV, Crossover, 4WD type cars from Juke, T-Roc, Q2 etc up over to top level Range Rovers and the like.
Raised driving position is a winner. Liked by nearly all. No longer the preserve of the er, tall,older, heavier or less active it seems.
Hatches are very much last generation, past fashion.
Not for this one tho!
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Round my way there is a huge preference for SUV, Crossover, 4WD type cars from Juke, T-Roc, Q2 etc up over to top level Range Rovers and the like.
Raised driving position is a winner. Liked by nearly all. No longer the preserve of the er, tall,older, heavier or less active it seems.
Hatches are very much last generation, past fashion.
Not for this one tho!
I fit into your ‘older’ category (but none of the other three categories :grin:) and it’ll always be a hatch for me too, assuming car manufacturers continue to build them.
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Fashions come and go... Take the veritable repmobile... Gone! Replaced with mpv's... Also gone!
The hatch other than the smaller fiesta sized one will be gone too I suggest...
VW's biggest error was while making an early push for electric they missed the cheap electric vehicle... Which probably would have sold loads. Left it to the Chinese to do it.
Their other problem was that for some time the Chinese bought vw cars but now they have a booming domestic selection.
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Looks as though vw are also ditching their independent software organisation to develop a joint one with rivian. The failure is put down to competition internally and egoism.
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Looks as though vw are also ditching their independent software organisation to develop a joint one with rivian. The failure is put down to competition internally and egoism.
Trying to become a large scale software house over night rather than paying others to do it for them....what could possibly go wrong? Actually, we know, it was the Mk8 Golf, all of the ID range and its VAG siblings.
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More details reported on Reuters website today of what VW are planning in an effort to reduce their operating costs;
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/volkswagen-plans-major-layoffs-shut-least-three-german-plants-works-council-head-2024-10-28/?
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https://youtu.be/LO5geG3wg5M?si=knpmBBKzo0Svf_sz
Plus, no idea if it’s related, VW seem to have removed a good few models from the UK configurator over the weekend. Might just be a rejig though.
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They do look like they are about to have a major industrial dispute on their hands.
German works councils in general are quite powerful, as is their employment laws and then on top there is the curious governance structure of VW itself.
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My experience of works councils in the past is that they generally took account of prevailing company economic environment in their demands but the German economy was good then. That all seems to be changing in the current climate. Estimates for future car production with EV quotas is downsizing the German workforce by about 190,000.
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Link to YouTube video posted on the Polo forum yesterday; VW workers in Germany are taking strike action over management plans to close factories and cut workers’ wages. I can’t see this ending well for either VW or those affected employees…………. :sad:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsaIubgfoII
Edit; and an article from EU News website (there are similar articles on other news websites);
https://www.eunews.it/en/2024/12/02/volkswagen-crisis-doesnt-stop-workers-strike-in-germany-rising-concerns-for-italys-auto-industry/
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I wonder how this will affect delivery times for cars? Probably significant on new orders.
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I wonder how this will affect delivery times for cars? Probably significant on new orders.
I think it will become significant if there’s further strike action, and IMHO that’s highly likely.
Interesting take on VW’s current situation in the YouTube video at the link below;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lq-JrBzcpo
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100,000 workers walked out this week in Germany...
This is just the start too.
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100,000 workers walked out this week in Germany...
This is just the start too.
Yes, I’d put money on there being more to come. I can’t see this ending well :whistle:.
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In the business section of the BBC News website today;
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cje9kv3q94po
Key points from the article;
- Deal reached with unions to avoid immediate German plant closures and the previously reported 10k compulsory redundancies.
- 35,000 job cuts in a ‘socially responsible manner’ (e.g. to be found by other means such as early retirement) by 2030.
- Deal will see reduction in capacity across manufacturing plants (could this mean longer lead times for those ordering a new car?).
- Some production likely to be moved to Mexico.
- Previously agreed 5% wage increase to be suspended in 2025 and 2026.
- Number of apprenticeships offered each year to be cut from 1,400 to 600.
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Production at VW's Wolfsburg plant, its biggest, will be cut to two assembly lines from four currently while production of the Golf and the Golf Variant will be shifted to VW's plant in Puebla, Mexico, from 2027
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production of the Golf and the Golf Variant will be shifted to VW's plant in Puebla, Mexico, from 2027
So shifting the CO2 emissions from Europe to South America and claiming how good the EU is in reducing them while creating more through shipping vehicles back to Europe?
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I was thinking more of the shoddy quality shift we saw with the beetle and the camper..
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And the crap keeps coming:
Volkswagen Group's software subsidiary Cariad exposed sensitive data of 800,000 EV owners through a misconfigured Amazon cloud storage system. The breach revealed vehicle locations, contact details, and addresses across multiple European countries, affecting various VW brands. The issue was fixed after ethical hackers reported it.
Thats basically all of the telemetry data for connected VW customers - owner details, locations etc etc
Nice.
Its caused a bit of a privacy meltdown in privacy sensitive Germany apparently.