On November 8, 2019, in Shanghai, my country, a Volkswagen Electric ID car was seen during the construction completion event of the SAIC Volkswagen MEB electric vehicle factory.
November 18th SAIC Volkswagen announced that a manual transmission factory owned by a joint venture between Volkswagen and SAIC Group will be closed in March next year. The news of
was conveyed to employees in a letter published in the media this week, marking the latest plan for the joint venture to gradually stop producing manual vehicles as Chinese customers favor self-driving cars. A spokesman for Volkswagen said the decision was made a few years ago, adding that the joint venture's manual transmission vehicle production has dropped from 500,000 to about 50,000 units per year. "For years, customer demand and our production and workforce numbers have been declining, and shareholders, together with the management committee, decided to suspend the production of manual transmissions." A spokesperson for
said that about 250 employees were affected and they will receive new job opportunities within the company.
Volkswagen and FAW joint ventures will continue to produce manual transmission systems, although production has also declined in recent years.
The German automaker is China's largest foreign automaker, but is struggling to compete with domestic electric car manufacturers.
Its goal is to double sales this year from 70,000 last year, which is still a big gap compared to competitors such as BYD , which sold nearly 220,000 electric vehicles in October alone.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-