2024-10-02 19:18:30
What’s next for Volkswagen in Osnabrück? Following Porsche’s withdrawal, the future of the plant is even more uncertain than before.
The VW factory in Osnabrück can no longer count on the hoped-for contract for an electric Porsche. “At Porsche, business in China is currently notoriously difficult. Therefore, overflow production for the Osnabrück plant can no longer be guaranteed in the future,” explained a VW spokesman when asked by the German Press Agency. The “Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung” had previously reported.
According to the report, the plan was actually to produce their electric successors there from 2026, when the Porsche models previously built in Osnabrück are phased out. The VW plant would then be used as “overflow production” to build cars for which the capacity at the Porsche main plant in Stuttgart was not sufficient. With the loss of the hoped-for follow-up order, the location will be without a follow-up model from spring 2026.
Porsche is currently the most important client for the small VW location with 2,300 employees. The combustion engines Cayman and Boxster have been built there since April 2022. There is also the VW T-Roc convertible, which will also expire in spring 2026. What happens next will now be decided in the fall. “The occupancy of the Osnabrück plant is – as in every year and for all of the group’s plants – part of the planning round at the end of the year,” said the VW spokesman.
Volkswagen is currently struggling with high costs and poor utilization of its plants. The group therefore no longer rules out operational-related layoffs and plant closures. The employees in Osnabrück have been worried about their future ever since. Osnabrück is the second smallest VW factory after the Transparent Factory in Dresden. The location came to VW in 2009 after Karmann went bankrupt. Karmann was previously a contract manufacturer for VW for decades.