VW News: VW To Downsize About 7,000 Jobs

[Drew Dowdell]

Volkswagen has announced it will cut between 5,000 to 7,000 jobs through attrition and early retirement at its headquarters in Wolfsburg, Germany.  Most of the job cuts will be administrative staff.  While cutting those job, VW will be creating 2,000 new software and electronics jobs.  The cuts are part of a cost savings plan to drive 3€ Billion in annual savings by 2020 and 5.9€ billion  by 2023. 

The move comes the day after the company announced it will increase its EV plans to build 22 million units over the next decade.  Electric vehicles are less complex to build and require fewer workers.

Volkswagen is building a new EV platform and the first vehicle to arrive on the market will be the I.D. Neo, expected sometime in 2020.  The I.D. Neo will be built at a plant in Zwickau, Germany.  Future electric vehicles will be built in 7 additional factories including Chattanooga, Tennessee. 

View full article

[G. David Felt]

The Future is going to be less physical jobs at auto companies for EV's. Yet the more robotics are used in auto assembly, the more maintenance / repair techs will be needed. Where one job is lost, another is usually created. This is good news and understandable. Re-Education of job training will be a reality for auto workers.

[Drew Dowdell]

32 minutes ago, dfelt said:

The Future is going to be less physical jobs at auto companies for EV's. Yet the more robotics are used in auto assembly, the more maintenance / repair techs will be needed. Where one job is lost, another is usually created. This is good news and understandable. Re-Education of job training will be a reality for auto workers.

There are going to be fewer mechanical variations between vehicles.  A company like VW could have power units in Small, Medium, and Large.... three variants to replace all of the gasoline/diesel/hybrid power train combinations they currently have.  And the only thing making them different will be the software. You can see why manufacturers see the potential cost savings to them for switching to EVs. 

[G. David Felt]

27 minutes ago, Drew Dowdell said:

There are going to be fewer mechanical variations between vehicles.  A company like VW could have power units in Small, Medium, and Large.... three variants to replace all of the gasoline/diesel/hybrid power train combinations they currently have.  And the only thing making them different will be the software. You can see why manufacturers see the potential cost savings to them for switching to EVs. 

Agreed, you build a single engine that can have multiple different personalities based on the software profile loaded into the auto control boards. This would allow very nice clear differences on HP / Torque or in this case kW / nM allowing for a true difference in buying a Chevrolet over a Cadillac as one example.

Yet with the simplified platforms / powertrains the automation building will need servicing. Kinda like the WIlly Wonka Chocolate factory where the father lost his job only to get a new one doing the service on the automation machines.

[riviera74]

Firing admin jobs in Germany while adding factory jobs there and elsewhere.  Sounds like VW is following what GM is doing as we speak.

[Drew Dowdell]

On 3/15/2019 at 12:22 AM, riviera74 said:

Firing admin jobs in Germany while adding factory jobs there and elsewhere.  Sounds like VW is following what GM is doing as we speak.

and BMW, and Toyota