With an industry-wide shortage of supply, demand remains high, especially for well-equipped vehicles, CFO Arno Antlitz told the Reuters news agency in Munich on Wednesday. With rising interest rates and a possible economic slowdown, however, competition will increase significantly. “Commodity prices will make our production more expensive, but price increases will not be easily enforceable.”
Volkswagen must therefore focus more on cost reductions again, also in order to be able to compensate for price increases for raw materials, among other things. Antlitz was a little more reserved than CEO Herbert Diess. On Tuesday, he underlined that the bottleneck in electronic components that had lasted for many months was finally easing. “We are increasing our volumes, not only in Germany, but above all in China.” However, in view of the uncertainty caused by the Ukraine war and concerns about an economic crisis, the group will cautiously increase production again. In his speech to the workforce, he did not mention any further savings.
In view of the compromise made by the EU member states for climate-neutral new cars, the Volkswagen leadership sees the switch to electromobility as irreversible. Antlitz emphasized at a Reuters event in Munich that the focus must now be on battery-powered vehicles. The biggest challenge is setting up the supply chains for batteries. A possible end of combustion engines in Europe is an ambitious goal. However, Volkswagen believes it is feasible. “The most challenging issue is not ramping up the car factories. The most challenging issue will be ramping up the battery supply chain.” Volkswagen wants to build six battery cell factories in Europe alone in the coming years.
With regard to the planned IPO of the sports car subsidiary Porsche, Antlitz was again optimistic that this could be completed as planned in the final quarter. There is still a lot of investor interest in an IPO and capital is available. “All the reasons why we should pursue this project are still there.”
Audi lays foundation stone for electric car plant in China
Audi has laid the foundation stone for a new car factory in the northern Chinese metropolis of Changchun. From 2024, 3,000 employees will be building up to 150,000 electric cars a year for the Chinese market based on the PPE luxury platform developed with Porsche. CEO Markus Duesmann, who is also responsible for the China business, said on Wednesday that with the new cooperation company Audi FAW NEV Company, Audi is bringing the PPE platform to China and producing market-specific e-models locally.
The new factory is larger than the Audi factory in Neckarsulm. In addition to the press shop, body shop, paint shop and vehicle assembly, there will also be battery assembly. After completion of the plant, initially three models of the Audi A6 e-tron and Audi Q6 e-tron series will be produced on the basis of the PPE platform. Only in China does Audi keep the construction of petrol engines open after 2033.
Audi FAW NEV is the first Audi majority-owned cooperative venture in China. The Volkswagen subsidiary is investing 2.6 billion euros in the project. The construction site is reproduced in detail with a 3D scan in a virtual environment: “A novelty in the Volkswagen Group. In this way, the planning staff in Ingolstadt can follow the progress of the work precisely despite the great distance,” said Audi.
Audi has been producing models for the Chinese market in the FAW Volkswagen plants in Changchun since 1988, and since this year also at SAIC Volkswagen in Shanghai. Last year, Audi built around 606,000 cars in Changchun and sold 701,000 cars in the People’s Republic. Audi delivered almost 1.7 million cars worldwide.
Gas bottles can burst: VW recalls 21,000 Tourans
Because parts of the tank can rust through and, in the worst case, burst, Volkswagen takes around 21,000 natural gas-powered Touran models to the workshops as a precaution. According to data from the Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA), the safety-related tests in Germany cover a little more than 8,300 seven-seater vehicles. According to VW information on Wednesday, unnoticed corrosion can occur on the rear two of the four gas bottles in individual cars, which cannot be seen from the outside during routine checks – with long-term material weakening and “in the worst case” sudden escape of the CNG -mixture
Therefore, the affected cars should be examined intensively, it said in Wolfsburg. The problem was found during “extensive quality checks” and the owners were now being written to.
In April, a Touran driver in the East Frisian town of Wittmund suffered burns on his legs when gaseous fuel suddenly escaped from a storage tank while he was being refuelled. The cars would now be inspected closely, and gas bottles would be temporarily deactivated or replaced if necessary. It is about CNG variants of the Touran from model year 2006 and between 2010 and 2015.
It is not the first time that there are problems with the tanks or cylinders in VW natural gas models. An earlier exchange campaign also ran for corresponding editions of the Passat and Caddy, in which the wall thickness could fall below a critical level due to rusting. In Duderstadt, Lower Saxony, a bottle burst in 2016 and seriously injured the driver. Several petrol station groups then recommended that their stations temporarily stop selling natural gas.
On Wednesday in XETRA trading, VW shares were temporarily down 2.4 percent at EUR 137.44.
Munich (Reuters) / INGOLSTADT (dpa-AFX)
Leverage must be between 2 and 20
No data
More news about Volkswagen (VW) AG Vz.
Image sources: Bocman1973 / Shutterstock.com