Out of the crisis: China models are supposed to save German VW plants

“If we were to also produce the vehicles that we currently build in China here, we could Stabilize utilization of our plants“, said Lies. “In this way, we also bring the opportunity for new development and innovation to the locations. For me, it’s about stabilizing employment and capacity utilization in our plants instead of watching other new plants set up outside of Germany.”

The goal: bring additional production to Europe

Volkswagen is currently not bringing enough vehicles onto the market to optimally utilize all of its plants. At the same time, there are models that the group develops and produces with partners in China. “So we bring our own vehicles into our plants here together with our partners and produce them here,” said Lies. “So we’re not talking about relocating production from Germany, but rather about bringing additional products and additional capacity to our European locations.”

The background to the consideration is the difficult situation in the automotive industry. The market is declining, but at the same time competitive pressure is increasing. Chinese cars are increasingly coming onto the European market, said Lies, but emphasized: “I am not prepared to say: because Chinese manufacturers are coming onto the European market and taking market share from us, we have to cut more jobs or close locations.” The question is whether you just want to be a spectator or continue to actively influence the game.

Report on loss of up to 100,000 jobs

The Manager Magazine had reported that the VW Group wanted to significantly tighten its austerity measures again. Up to 100,000 jobs could be lost worldwide, twice as many as previously planned. Four plants in Germany are threatened with closure.

VW confirmed that it is working on a future plan for the company’s realignment. The aim is to make the company “more efficient and leaner and to consistently use technological synergy potential”. A spokesman left details open.

The state of Lower Saxony holds 20 percent of the voting rights in the VW Group. Lies and his deputy Julia Willie Hamburg (Greens) sit on the supervisory board. Together with the employee representatives, they have the majority there. The country also has the right to veto important decisions.

Following reports of a tightened austerity plan, Lies announced yesterday that the country would not agree to any development “that relies on factory closures as a supposedly simple solution or that calls into question tried and tested codetermination.” Lies continued: “Volkswagen’s future will not be won by constantly focusing on new plant closures or ever larger job-cutting programs.”

China as part of the solution

Volkswagen has been working with Chinese partners for decades. Through collaborations with XPeng and SAIC, among others, the group was able to quickly make up for a development gap and strengthen its competitiveness, said Lies. Volkswagen has been active in China for 42 years and, in good times, builds around three million vehicles there every year.

Lies believes that isolation from technological developments from China is the wrong approach. “Our goal should not be to isolate technological developments from one another,” he said. Innovations that arise worldwide must also secure jobs and create new added value at the locations in Lower Saxony and Germany.

In April, after a trip to China, Lies spoke out in favor of examining the construction of Chinese cars in German VW plants.