• Volkswagen is producing fewer prototypes in 2024, as part of its quest to cut back on spending.
It’s no secret - Volkswagen is struggling with financial difficulties and major challenges to redress its situation. The threat of job cuts and factory closures in Germany has already led to the mobilization of workers there who went on their first targeted strikes earlier this week. Things are likely to get heated between VW and the IG Metall union in the coming weeks.
By whatever method, it’s clear the company needs to reduce spending. Factory closures and job cuts are one way, but it’s not the only one. We’re already seeing measures being put into place. And that includes cutting back on the number of testing prototypes it builds. By the time 2024 is done, the automaker will have manufactured 40 percent fewer of them than last year.
VW head of technical development Kai Grünitz told Automobilwoche (associated with Automotive News Europe, about other ways the company intends to save money.
Among them, cutting down on the time taken to develop of a new model, to about 30-36 months. For new vehicles that use an existing platform, the goal is to reduce that timeline even more. According to Grünitz, if Volkswagen stuck to its old way of operating, which was to take four to five years to bring a new model to market, that model would already be outdated by the time it went on sale.
And of course, on way to speed up development to reduce the number of real-world tests.
And also of course, this raises questions about quality, because that’s one of the main ways for rooting out issues on a new vehicle and resolving them before any are delivered to customers. Grünitz said this is no longer the case, and added that the company is conducting more virtual tests to compensate.
It's hard not to be skeptical, but we'll have to see what this way of doing things will lead to in the long run.
The Motor 1 outlet pointed out that Volkswagen has already abandoned its project to build a $2 billion euro factory. That was supposed to allow for assembling a vehicle in only 10 hours. Despite this, the new objective is to "radically cut manufacturing times" at existing factories by installing new, more sophisticated equipment. Closer collaboration with suppliers will also improve efficiency.
Will all this be enough to avoid job cuts and factory closures? It's hard to say, but it seems obvious the company is in a race against time.
