162
Volkswagen to shut three factories, axe jobs and cut pay by 10%, says union
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 28 Oct 2024
162 points (99.4% liked)
World News
39173 readers
3795 users here now
A community for discussing events around the World
Rules:
-
Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
-
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
-
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed.
-
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
-
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF 10/19
-
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
-
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
-
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
Lemmy World Partners
News [email protected]
Politics [email protected]
World Politics [email protected]
Recommendations
For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/
- Consider including the article’s mediabiasfactcheck.com/ link
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Some context from someone who lives in germany:
VW has for quite a while now failed to read the writing on the wall and join in on the growing market for electronic cars. All the while getting subsidies from the german government.
Now they cant compete anymore and even their regular cars are way to expensive for a lot of germans to buy. And the chinese manufacturers are pushing them even further out of a market they failed to enter by refusing to innovate years ago.
A lot of this reads over here like hostage taking: They want more subsidies for their failing company model, or they leave the country.
Reminds me of what we go through with the big 3 in the us
Exactly what I was thinking.
I remember how GM did fuckall in the 90s while Honda and Toyota and even Hyundai ate their lunch.
Failing to read the market.. or shareholders wanting dividends rather than invest it in the companies future?
Alternatively, the German government nationalizes VW to keep the jobs, fires upper management and replace them with people that get the orders to make cheap/affordable EVs for the masses.
Fuck the shareholders.
Too late the state of Lower Saxony and the work's council together already have majority voting rights. By pure shares the Porsche/Piëch clan has a majority but the work's council gets 50% - 1 seats on the board (generally the case for big German companies) so they can't just dictate things.
That said the work's council previously did agree to a severe downsizing, back when automation swept the industry they agreed to introduce it, opposing it would've meant the end of the company, but made sure that the most back-breaking jobs got automated first, and that staff reduction was done with early retirement and a stop to hiring, not massive layoffs. Something like this may happen again but the way that the executive council is acting right now -- yeah I think their heads are going to roll. They're acting as if the company wasn't, ultimately, run by IG Metall (via works council and socdem state government).
It's so sad considering they just now managed to bring out the best EV on the market (ID.7) - and will refresh the older range to the same standard.
Their plant in Chattanooga TN started making EV’s in 2022. My dad retired from VW and keeps tabs. In his opinion they still aren’t selling well.
They're all mega expensive, arent' they?
I feel like a huge mistake is making heavy, mega luxury EVs instead of pushing smaller-battery cars with a tiny (I'm talking like 2hp) backup generator.
I think the delusion that fuels this insanity is western car companies understand the future is no longer defined by visions of the car but they can't admit it. They can't make cheap, reliable ev commuter cars because from their perspective that would be admitting the truth they can not accept to themselves.
I don't even think this has to do with money, surely there will be big markets in ev vehicles long into the future, rather it is about something deeper, it is about refusing to participate in any future that doesn't unquestionably place cars at the center of it.
To western car execs a simple, reliable compact electric commuter car isn't a car, zero percent of them drive anything other than sports cars and massive trucks/suvs and they see one of the fundamental utilities of a car is to seperate oneself from the city of dirty working class people between your mansion and executive suite office (who would actually benefit most from said practical small electric commuter cars).
Eh. Especially because (at least European) car companies understand that public transport is a thing they're focussing so damn much on upper market segments. "Commuter car" indeed does not feature in visions of the future, at least not prominently.
Right, they see the business of car sales as like horses for the rich and more crucially they see themselves as a luxury brand that associates itself with wealth via the inherent difficulty of owning and maintaining a large luxury car that excludes all but the rich. It is the same with Ralph Lauren and horses, polo in this case being analagous to the ridiculous high stakes driving fantasies luxury car commercials evoke.
$40,000 for ID4. I don’t know if that currently qualifies for the government rebates.
The problem is the Chinese market, which has been a huge market for VW. That's where they failed to come up with a viable competitor to the cheap EVs that are selling like hotcakes in China. Yes, the U.S. sales have been lackluster but that's not what is driving VW's woes. The U.S. is a relatively small market for VW.
Capitalism at its finest.
I remember reading somewhere that they have a subsidiary that was made to implement the software needed to run EVs, and another something to do with batteries. Both of these subsidiaries have appeared to be massive failures, though the reasons weren’t stated in the article I read. Were they just badly funded? Or were the people hired there resistant to switching to EVs?
Also, well, they illegally lied to us. Now being surprised (Pikachu face) I bought a Chinese car, I can have that for cheap.
I wonder where I’ve heard that before but I have NO fucKIng ideA. (I’m just being cryptic for fun)