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Production at the VW main plant in Wolfsburg
Photo: SWEN PFORTNER / AFP
In order to prepare its employees for the era of electric mobility, the Volkswagen Group wants to guide around 22,000 employees at the Wolfsburg site through several escape rooms.
There they should answer quiz questions about electricity or assemble parts of an electric car.
Only when the team finds the solution is it allowed to leave the puzzle room again.
Helpers who are connected via video cameras are available to provide support.
The measure should start in February, the background is the conversion of the VW main plant.
So far, only combustion vehicles have been manufactured there, but starting this year, ID.3 electric cars will roll off the assembly line in Wolfsburg for the first time.
Production will then be gradually increased and more models are expected to be added.
Training lasts up to 378 days
By 2025, VW Chief Human Resources Officer Gunnar Kilian wants to gradually train the Wolfsburg workforce for the e-age.
As part of a large-scale further training program, skilled workers are to learn future professions such as data logistics specialists, Java developers or vehicle electronics technicians.
The training times are up to 378 days, depending on the complexity of the qualification.
In addition to the retraining, VW is looking for external specialists, especially from the IT sector.
At the end of 2022, VW announced that it would convert the Wolfsburg plant to the production of electric cars.
To this end, the group will invest around 460 million euros in the conversion of the site by 2025.
Volkswagen had previously upgraded its factories in Zwickau, Saxony, and Emden, Lower Saxony, to manufacture electric cars.
There, too, the company sent its employees to escape rooms for further training.