Manager Magazin first reported the overhaul and said Volkswagen, the world\u2019s second-largest carmaker, would cut investment by about 15% to just over \u20ac130 billion (US$148 billion) over the next five years.<\/p>\n
The magazine also said Blume and chief financial officer Arno Antlitz aim to fundamentally restructure the 89-year-old group, including by spinning off the core VW brand and parts operations into separate entities.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe high costs are merely a symptom, not the cause. They do not address the root cause, which is weak sales,\u201d said Ingo Speich of Deka.<\/p>\n
\u201cVW must bring attractive products to market that are in high demand; that would put an end to the debate over costs.\u201d<\/p>\n
A Volkswagen spokesperson declined to comment on \u201cconfidential documents\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe entire group, including its brands and subsidiaries, must undergo far-reaching change,\u201d the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
Volkswagen\u2019s works council and IG Metall, Germany\u2019s powerful metalworkers\u2019 union, vowed to resist any such measures.<\/p>\n
\u201cShould such plans go ahead, we would do everything in our power to prevent them,\u201d they said in a joint statement on Friday.<\/p>\n
The premier of Lower Saxony also said the state would not agree to the plan.<\/p>\n
Porsche SE, the investment vehicle of the Porsche and Pi\u00ebch families and Volkswagen\u2019s biggest shareholder, declined to comment.<\/p>\n
The proposals are likely to put renewed focus on Volkswagen\u2019s unusual governance and ownership structure, which gives significant influence to labour representatives and Lower Saxony.<\/p>\n
In its 2025 financial year, Volkswagen had a global workforce of 667,164, with almost 43% employed in Germany.<\/p>\n
Blume\u2019s first attempt to close plants in Germany in 2024 met fierce resistance from labour unions and forced a retreat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Manager Magazin first reported the overhaul and said Volkswagen, the world\u2019s second-largest carmaker, would cut investment by about…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45671,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20947],"tags":[24702,89,1098,38728,5,4510,5356],"class_list":["post-45670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-volkswagen","tag-auto-industry","tag-china","tag-electric-vehicles","tag-factories","tag-germany","tag-pressure","tag-volkswagen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45670\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}