said<\/a> in August.<\/p>\n“Our cars are becoming more expensive and therefore increasingly difficult to sell \u2013 not because they have got worse, but because the rules of the game have changed,” he said at the time. <\/p>\n
Additionally, Volkswagen has faced fierce competition from Chinese rivals as domestic manufacturers such as BYD and Geely gained ground in electric vehicles and challenged its longstanding position in the market. <\/p>\n
The car maker’s restructuring plan reflects broader pressures facing Europe’s auto sector, including Chinese overcapacity and much lower-priced imports, said Kevin Thozet, a member of the Investment Committee at Carmignac.<\/p>\n
“Europe is therefore importing not only Chinese cars, but Chinese price deflation,” Thozet said Friday.<\/p>\n
Europe also has an “overcapacity problem of its own,” he added, with Volkswagen particularly exposed because some of its German plants were built around first-generation electric sedans for which demand has weakened.<\/p>\n
“China has too many cars. Europe has too many factories. And both problems are colliding,” Thozet said.<\/p>\n
Analysts were expecting Volkswagen’s shares to rise on the news. The announcement served as a “major surprise,” but also represents that the company is capable of executing difficult decisions, Deutsche Bank analysts said on Friday. <\/p>\n
“The unanimous approval of Volkswagen’s Zukunftsplan 2030 last night is, in our view, a fundamental breakthrough and a much better-than-feared outcome,” they said. <\/p>\n
“Virtually every single one of the numerous investors we spoke to over the last few days continued to view Volkswagen as simply ‘not fixable,’ and scepticism around the likelihood of a comprehensive agreement remained extremely high,” they added. <\/p>\n
While the transformation does not solve Volkswagen’s challenges overnight, it’s a step in the right direction, marking a new phase for the company, they said.<\/p>\n
They added that the outcome could have “broader implications” for the German auto industry, with other auto manufacturers taking similar steps to offset slower growth, excess capacity, international competition and pressure on returns. <\/p>\n
“The December 2024 restructuring agreement arguably encouraged other manufacturers to pursue similarly difficult but necessary adjustments,” they added. “Today’s decision could create a similar halo effect.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Volkswagen employees are taking part in an information and protest event organized by IG Metall in front of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":85383,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20947],"tags":[61135,23793,20523,94,1447,89,1437,61520,13173,548,34141,52564,7868,5356,23795],"class_list":["post-85382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-volkswagen","tag-boyd-gaming-corp","tag-breaking-news-business","tag-breaking-news-markets","tag-business","tag-business-news","tag-china","tag-ishares-msci-germany-etf","tag-labor-economy","tag-layoffs","tag-markets","tag-personnel","tag-stoxx-600","tag-transportation","tag-volkswagen","tag-volkswagen-ag"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85382","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=85382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85382\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}