The German e-car pioneer Volkswagen is rowing back.
Employees now have to drive combustion engines again.
Wolfsburg - Volkswagen has slowly made a name for itself in the e-car industry.
The Wolfsburg-based automaker is now competing with industry giants such as Tesla.
Volkswagen repeatedly makes it clear to the outside world how important it is to switch to electric vehicles.
But now it seems to be the carmaker himself who is stalling the turnaround in traffic.
VW: A lack of semiconductors is now also affecting company cars
For the time being, VW employees will no longer receive any e-cars as company cars.
The group communicated this to around 18,000 authorized company cars in an email, as reported by the
Wolfsburger Allgemeine Zeitung
.
At Volkswagen, therefore, no new e-cars can currently be ordered as company cars and the delivery of those that have already been ordered will be delayed.
This is due to the shortage of semiconductors, which is currently keeping the entire auto industry in suspense.
The delivery bottlenecks of the urgently needed microchips repeatedly lead to short-time working and even interim production stops.
Meanwhile, consumer demand for e-cars continues to grow.
VW customers already have to accept waiting times of up to a year.
VW employees have to drive their cars longer
Therefore, employees now have to back off and be satisfied with combustion engines again.
After all, delivering to external customers has priority.
In addition, VW has come up with another regulation that should relieve the works and relax the situation.
According to this, company cars should in future be driven by employees for at least twelve months before they receive a new car.
So far, the intervals between changes have been significantly shorter.
This change should also have a major impact on the used car market.
There are currently significantly fewer cars there than in previous years.
(ph)
