Volkswagen open to building military equipment for German army

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/03/11/volkswagen-open-to-building-military-equipment-german-army/

by Straight_Ad2258

48 comments

  2. Tesla gets the most explosive car prize, VW is behind by at least a decade in this category

  3. unironically, i think some of VW’s factories could and should permanently switch to defense manufacturing

    the switch to electric cars will lead to a long term job loss in the German car industry of 70% of all jobs, and multiple factories for small car parts will have to close

    electric engines especially have only 20 moving parts compared to 1200 parts in ICE vehicles

    so there is an oportunity to make the transition away from gasoline cars without massive deindustrialization

    also, whatever happens in US in the future, German defense industry production will permanently become larger, because it will have to replace not only old Soviet equipment in Eastern Europe,, but also increasingly American equipment in Europe and even around the world

    Germany and the rest of Europe could easily steal bit by bit the global defense market from US and Russia

    the more relations with US breakdown, the better for its defense industry, as non-aligned countries like Algeria, Indonesia, Pakistan, Nigeria and others would prefer European defense products over Russian and American ones

    Rheinmetall and Hanwha could esentially own the global tank market in the years to come

  5. A 100 years ago: 🙋🏻‍♂️
    Today: 🙏🏻

  7. Since VW is already part owner of a military heavy utility vehicles collab through one of their brands, I don’t think this is out of line, tbh.

  8. Oh, so that’s why I was issued a pickelhaube and a wienerdog this morning

  10. Don’t send Putin an Austrian to put in charge while he is on holiday or we have a world war on our hands. My people love to start World Wars.

  12. The US threatening Canada and getting in bed with Russia. The Europeans asking the French to provide a nuclear umbrella and asking the Huns “can you fucking rearm already”, Germany asking Volkswagen to you know, do what they did best first and little Poland basically having the strongest military in Europe at the moment (sans nukes).

    We’re definately living in a computer simulation.

  15. this is the funniest “back to the roots” arc of this season. Not only would it keep jobs and help rearm the country, it was triggered by Trump’s tariffs which he imposed to harm and sabotage the EU efforts.

  18. So long as the tanks don’t have the stupid haptic buttons of the ID line

  19. OH SHIT, HERE WE GO AGAIN.
    Whats next, Hugo Boss will make their uniforms?!

    FR now, we need Germany to become strong so we can properly flip off the russian and american morons

  20. Have VW build a level 2 vehicle en masse.

    Something with comparable armor to an M113 akin to a Senator. If they could make a tracked vehicle sure thats better but with their line you could in theory adjust it quicker to something like that.

    They already make stuff through their MAN subsidiary. Stuff like the Tpz Fuchs, AMPV etc. just scale the production to a normal VW factory

  24. Given the fortune they’re planning on spending to refurbish the ICE vehicle factories to produce EVs, it might be smarter to build new facilities for EVs and subsidise them with defence equipment assembly contracts.

    Of course they’ll need guarantees from the state to commit as it’s a massive pivot

  25. Bring back the Kubelwagen and Schwimmwagen, please VW.

    I’d gladly have one over a Tesla, any day.

  27. Meine guten Nachbarn bauen die besten Autos …. for years I’m driving VW. Those diesels are really unbreakable. (1.9 tdi)

  29. Oh boy, we’re getting the band back together. Waiting for BASF and Hugo Boss announcements.

  30. We’re doing a sequel…. we’re back by popular demand………

  31. Can we please make sure this equipment is distributed among EU partners to balance and strengthen whole EU? We have big potential here, German industry also could use some funding but let’s learn from the history and let’s not make a mistake again. Just in case far right wins the elections with help of Russian and Chinese trolls.

    Also rather than focusing in a single market it should be diversified and duplicated among key members making sure everyone benefits but also everyone can contribute. I would also like to remind that railroad workers protests I. Germany have heavily impacted military transport from Germany towards Poland and Ukraine. This was not reliable and has to be solved. Also in the following year strong support from civilian population will be critical.

  35. Last time Germany prepared for war, they build rockets. What would be this time? Warp core?

  38. Let’s go VW. How about you build the first mine ignoring(you have more engineers than most, figure something out) and bulletproof, stealth-cavalry wagon, enabling Ukraine to get behind those pesky trenches and minefields? Give it a phaeton v12 motor and they are ready to go.

  39. Tanks being exempt from emissions make this so much more viable.

  40. >“We are not in specific talks about what Volkswagen can do. My take on it is, if there was the option of military vehicles going forward, we would have to look at the concepts.

    >“We did that in the past.

    Ah yes, with the Volkswagen Type 87, also known as the Kommandeurswagen and built between 1941-44.

  42. Wonder Twins powers, activate! (That would be Germany and France.)

  44. VWs CEO words: “We are not in specific talks about what Volkswagen can do. My take on it is, if there was the option of military vehicles going forward, we would have to look at the concepts.”

    That sounds quite far away to me… I mean there is a difference in manufacturing a Golf and a highly customized military vehicle with all its variations to gun sockets, communication equipment and protections. And it needs another level of testing…

  45. VW: You merely adopted the war. *I was born in it, molded by it*

  46. VW starting up military vehicles again, would be like the old man stretching and saying alright let’s go.

Comments are closed.