CONNECT WITH US
EV & Mobility

EV & Mobility

Volkswagen hits pause on the Golf EV as it faces an ‘urgent need for action’

Electrek logo

Published on

Add as a preferred source on Google
Volkswagen hits pause on the Golf EV as it faces an ‘urgent need for action’

Volkswagen has put the electric Golf on hold for now as it faces growing pressure to cut costs.

“We cannot afford to lose any time and must act quickly and decisively,” Volkswagen Group CFO and COO Arno Antlitz warned after the company reported its largest quarterly loss since the “Dieselgate” scandal in 2015 on Thursday.

VW Group’s operating loss swelled to €5.9 billion ($6.5 billion) in the third quarter because of a write-down of its Porsche stake, weak sales in China, and lower profit margins on electric vehicles.

As part of its latest cost-control efforts, Volkswagen is pausing development of the all-electric Golf at its Wolfsburg plant in Germany.

“We simply can’t afford this work right now,” VW brand CEO Thomas Schäfer said in an internal memo Reuters reviewed on Friday. The Wolfsburg plant, or the “heart of the VW brand,” is about €300 million ($334.5 million) short of its cost-cutting targets, the memo said.

Schäfer said the “decision was really not an easy one for us,” knowing what the Golf means to Wolfsburg.

The decision comes after Volkswagen’s Supervisory Board approved its restructuring strategy, “Future Plan 2030,” last month, which includes reducing its global workforce by 100,000, trimming its lineup, and closing several plants in Germany.

Volkswagen initially planned to launch the Golf EV in 2028, but Schäfer confirmed earlier this year that the electric hatch will be delayed until closer to 2030.

Schäfer suggested the delay was because the SSP (Scalable Systems Platform), developed through its partnership with Rivian, was taking longer than expected.


Source link
Related Topics:EV & Mobility

Disclaimer

We strive to uphold the highest ethical standards in all of our reporting and coverage. We TheMorningPulse.fyi want to be transparent with our readers about any potential conflicts of interest that may arise in our work. It's possible that some of the investors we feature may have connections to other businesses, including competitors or companies we write about. However, we want to assure our readers that this will not have any impact on the integrity or impartiality of our reporting. We are committed to delivering accurate, unbiased news and information to our audience, and we will continue to uphold our ethics and principles in all of our work. Thank you for your trust and support.