Volkswagen isn’t scheduled to outline its strategy for the transition to electric vehicles until tomorrow, June 21. But Germany’s business journalists think they know what’s going on, including who will be building what. Škoda will apparently specialize in designing and producing VW’s last combustion engines until 2035. That’s when the sale of fossil fuel vehicles ends in Europe.
Welt am Sonntag writes that VW will end the geographic division of brands, which has proven inefficient. Instead, each factory will be assigned just enough work to them just busy enough. Škoda will be the flagship for combustion engine cars and will reportedly see its output limited to five or six (gas-powered) models. Its electric models will likely be built outside the country. In fact, the Czech Republic is unique within the Volkswagen universe in that for the most part, only Škoda vehicles are produced in Czech factories. That looks like another item that will be tossed into the dustbin of managerial history.
What does that mean for VW’s gigantic battery factory that the Czech state began its last-minute planning for 12 months ago? Most likely, it means that Spain will get it because its government decided during Covid to bet everything on technologies of the future. By betting its own money, Spain also earned huge contributions from the European Union, putting it in the driver’s seat for the battery factory. Since the United States has also decided to support green technologies with hard cash, it looks like VW will build another battery factory there.
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