The demand for hybrid cars has increased enormously in Germany.
Volkswagen was obviously caught off guard by this.
The VW works council reproaches the top management.
Wolfsburg - VW will once again shut down production of the bestseller Golf 8 in March.
However, this is not due to the lack of demand for the traditional compact class.
Rather, Volkswagen * continues to have to deal with delivery bottlenecks for important components for vehicle production.
This means that, as in the months before, certain shifts in the main plant in Wolfsburg are being put on hold as a corona consequence.
The production lines of the compact class are to be canceled on several days, the
Wolfsburg news report
.
The start of the new hope of the eighth generation has already been botched *.
VW cuts production - works council criticizes management for wrong prognosis
The failure also comes about because the group management apparently made incorrect assessments with regard to the sale of hybrid cars.
VW works council boss Bernd Osterloh made a corresponding statement when he told the
Braunschweiger Zeitung
: “In Germany, 60 percent of all Golf orders are for hybrids, in Europe 40 percent.” New registrations of cars with this type of drive have been increasing noticeably in this country for some time :
The problem is therefore that both electronic chips and battery cells are not supplied by suppliers to the desired extent.
The reason: With manufacturers of these components, demand from the automotive industry rose for years before the Corona crisis * came to an abrupt halt.
But at least the chip manufacturers quickly found new buyers from other industries, which means that post-production now has to be done.
Volkswagen has meanwhile announced that it
wants to open up
new sources of
supply.
VW in Wolfsburg: Golf production has to suspend - although the order books are full
Osterloh criticizes that the VW management was wrong, especially with the battery cells for the production of hybrid models.
This seems surprising in view of the company's new direction: after all, CEO Herbert Diess * ushered in the technological change a long time ago and geared the strategy towards electromobility.
“We have 93,000 orders on our books for the hatchback Golf * alone,” continues the works council chairman.
According to him, that would be enough to keep production in Wolfsburg at full capacity for more than four months instead of registering short-time work again.
With the ongoing throttling in various plants, the group may be giving up the opportunity to cushion the weak start to the year: For January 2021, the KBA recorded almost 30 percent fewer new VW registrations compared to the same month last year.
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