VW is planning a new production facility near the main plant in Wolfsburg.
The Trinity electric car, which will compete with Tesla, is to be manufactured there.
Wolfsburg - Volkswagen plans to build a separate plant near the headquarters in Wolfsburg for its fundamentally new Trinity electric model. The car is scheduled to hit the market in 2026. The project announced on Tuesday evening is considered to be one of the key points in the investment strategy for the next five years. The supervisory board still has to approve the new production facility. The final decision may be made by December 9th - this is the day on which VW's medium-term investment planning should be completed.
Core brand boss Ralf Brandstätter told the editorial network Germany (Tuesday) that there are no large unused areas on the Wolfsburg factory premises.
Trinity will be a new type of car with few variants and lean production.
“We could only implement the necessary renovation measures in the existing structure with ongoing operations with cost-intensive measures.
That is why we consider a new factory in the surrounding area to be the best, because it is the most economical solution, ”explained the VW manager.
New VW plant: "On the green field outside the factory fence"
Cars are still being built at the main plant in Wolfsburg. "In the next few years it will be the Golf and Tiguan in particular," said Brandstätter. Combustion engines will continue to be manufactured on two lines. Another Trinity variant is to be produced on the vacant space. The works council had recently criticized that CEO Herbert Diess did not have a sufficient strategy for a higher utilization of Wolfsburg - especially in the ongoing chip supply crisis, which keeps tens of thousands of people on short-time work, sometimes for months. In addition, the workforce representatives demanded at least one more e-model for the headquarters from around 2024. This question has not yet been decided, Brandstätter told the RND. "We're talking about that right now, but one thing is clear: it has to make economic sense."
With regard to the new Trinity plant, VW had announced: “The new factory will be built on the green field outside the factory fence.” “Various locations in the vicinity of Wolfsburg would come into question.” The construction of the production facility could, according to estimates from corporate circles, at least a few hundred Cost millions of euros.
In the new VW plant, electric cars are to be built with the new system
Trinity is a completely redesigned vehicle system in which the most modern electric drives as well as largely self-programmed software, own networking and technologies of autonomous driving from VW are to be used.
To do this, the main brand uses a further developed platform called SSP, which subsidiaries can also access.
A total of more than 40 million cars are to be built on this technical basis.
The largest German company wants to attack the US rival Tesla, which is already about to start its new "Gigafabrik" in Grünheide near Berlin.
(dpa / red)
