Four years ago, Volkswagen revamped its Zwickau plant in its German stronghold to win the crucial battle of the pure electric transformation.
With a forward and backward bet of $33 billion, about 9000 tons of steel structure will be moved, and only 1/3 of the existing machines can support reuse.
All the measures are tantamount to a thrilling thoracotomy.
This is the first large car factory of Volkswagen to convert internal combustion engines into electric vehicles, and it is the first large automobile production base in the world to switch seamlessly to electrification, from the technical architecture to the way of assembly to the materials used.
All the upper design and bottom logic are fundamentally different from the past.
It is worth mentioning that the above operation is only the initial “bet” of the strategic model ID.
3 before it is put into production.
In fact, Volkswagen has invested 89 billion euros in electrified transformation over the past few years and plans to invest a further 180 billion euros from 2023 to 2027.
Volkswagen is not alone in spending a lot of money on pure electric.
Since the beginning of this year, as incentives have been cancelled across Europe, electric car sales have suddenly become “cold”, making European manufacturers suspicious of past big investments and affecting new decisions.
The “headwind” of terminal sales also affects front-line production and the layout of new cars.
Including Audi, Porsche, Ford, Hyundai and Stellantis and other manufacturers have adjusted their strategies to shift their focus from the research and production of pure electric vehicles to the development of hybrid power systems.
Pure electricity is no longer fragrant.
Various signs and research forecasts show that the prospect of the European pure electric market has indeed been cast a new shadow.
According to a survey conducted by the Association of European Automobile Manufacturers (ACEA), less than 30% of European consumers choose to buy electric cars, and more than half of them are very firm that they will not buy electric cars priced above 35000 euros.
By 2030, Europeans will buy 2 million fewer electric cars a year than previously predicted, according to a new report from investment research firm Jefferies.
If sales remain sluggish, the EU’s plan to ban the sale of new fuel cars by 2035 will be affected.
According to another set of data from UBS, Europeans will buy nearly 9 million fewer electric cars than expected between 2024 and 2030.
In Europe, high vehicle prices, long-distance mileage and immature charging facilities have become the core elements that electric car buyers are prohibitive.
An executive at Inovev, a French consultancy, said in an email that charging infrastructure is a thorny topic that requires significant public and private investment, while in Europe, public services at both the national and regional levels are not a top priority.
Last year, the total number of public charging piles in the European Union was about 630000, with 70 per cent concentrated in Germany, France and the Netherlands.
Jato Dynamics did research in the first half of the year and found that the average price of an electric car in Europe is about 65000 euros, about twice that of a fuel car.
On the other hand, for private buyers, people are cautious about the uncertain residual value of pure electric vehicles, and the price cuts of brands such as Tesla have led to the collapse of the secondary market.
In such an environment, many automakers, including Volkswagen Group, have begun to run into difficulties in production in recent months.
The overall transformation has not only failed to “take off”, but also encountered setbacks in sales and product layout.
At the end of last year, Volkswagen announced it would spend 4.
2 billion euros on the expansion of two plants in Spain.
In Spain, a large proportion of Volkswagen cars produced are exported to Germany, and electrified models have become the focus of production.
Wayne Griffiths, a brand owned by Volkswagen, Seattle CEO Wayne Griffith, also told the media that he felt anxious every time he owned the Martorere plant outside Barcelona because the company had invested 300 million euros in the battery assembly plant there and would start operating next year.
But the current situation in Spain is that the market share of electric cars is only about 5%.
In the past few months, the pure electricity market in some European countries has even shrunk.
The European Association of Automobile Manufacturers estimates that across the EU, the market share of electric vehicles will fall by 1 percentage point year-on-year as of June.
Take Germany, for example, which has the largest share of the car market in Europe, which abolished subsidies for electric car purchases at the end of 2023.
Recently, electric vehicle sales fell 37% year-on-year in July.
Cumulative sales from January to July fell 20% from a year earlier.
Sweden, as the leader of pure electric vehicles in Europe, is also going backwards in the process of electric car sales.
According to the latest figures in July, the share of new energy vehicles in Sweden was 59%, roughly the same as in the same period last year, but sales of pure electric models fell 15% from a year earlier, exacerbating the market downturn so far this year.
Weighing the pros and cons and adjusting the layout, there are many reasons for the decline in electric car sales in the European market.
It is related to the weak consumption in the European market as a whole and the government’s encouragement of the decline of subsidies, and in July, it was also affected by the temporary tariffs imposed by the European Union on China.
Monthly sales of electric cars in Europe fell 7.
8% in July from a year earlier, and sales from January to July this year were basically the same as in 2023, according to data.
By contrast, traditional hybrid and mild hybrid models in Europe are growing faster, with more new cars even than fuel cars in July.
So far at least, despite government incentives, the growth of electric vehicles has proved unsustainable in the European market.
Not only has the expected development momentum been lost, but end-consumption has also lost the incentive to buy, which makes many consumers doubt the future of pure electric power.
Volkswagen faces the greatest risk when the German pure electric market cools down, according to a UBS report.
If sales of electric cars remain sluggish in Europe, the company’s profits next year could be affected by 2 billion euros.
Taking into account the latest trends, Stellantis Group has updated its product plans for the European market, with plans to launch 30 mild hybrid models in Europe this year and six more by 2026.
More and more car companies choose to modify their targets.
Porsche had previously said it would abandon its goal of accounting for 80 per cent of electric car sales in 2030 because the transformation was slower than expected and management agreed that the goal was too radical.
Audi also said that because the importance of the PHEV model is higher than expected, it will take longer for fuel vehicles to fully turn to pure electric vehicles than expected.
Therefore, the company will launch more hybrid product lines according to the changes in the market.
Abandoning the radical goal of pure electric, major models must ensure the deployment of “dual fuel and pure electric”, and all future eggs cannot be placed on pure electric tracks.
In the past, Audi had high hopes for its all-electric models, the Q8 e-tron and the Q8 Sportback e-tron, but in the past few months, these two models have faced pressure from a sharp drop in orders.
Faced with embarrassing market performance, Audi had to emphasize in a statement that it “plans to restructure the focus of Brussels production.
” If there is no better solution in the future, it will not rule out the possibility of closing relevant factories.
The Brussels factory currently has about 3000 long-term workers and 500 temporary workers.
Once a large-scale reorganization is carried out due to the electrification strategy, a large number of workers will face the risk of unemployment.
Mercedes-Benz is also weighing the pros and cons.
Previously, Mercedes-Benz set a target of 50% of its total sales of electric vehicles (including hybrid models) in 2025.
However, this plan has been revised by the company and the target deadline has been moved back to 2030.
Interestingly, Mercedes-Benz CEO Kang Linsong also pointed out in the first half of the year that the company has not given up on fuel vehicles and will upgrade internal combustion engine technology as planned in the next 10 years.
Renault Chairman Jean Dominique Senard directly called for government subsidies to be permanent, but current European manufacturers still need subsidies.
Take Germany as an example.
The decision to cancel subsidies at the end of last year directly led to sharp fluctuations in demand for new pure electric vehicles in 2024 and disrupted a series of manufacturers ‘product plans.
Return to First Electric Network Home>.
