VW upgrades its Zwickau plant to support increasing production of EVs

The Group's largest and highest- performance electric car plant is currently being created in Zwickau: in future, up to 330,000 electric models per year are to roll off the production line there, more than at any other plant of the Volkswagen Group. As the first high-volume automaker in the world, Volkswagen is converting an entire plant from the internal combustion engine to e-mobility. Currently, the Golf and Golf Estate are produced at Zwickau.

At the end of 2019, in slightly more than a year, the production of the ID., Volkswagen's first electric model based on the new modular electric toolkit (MEB), is due to start at Zwickau. In the final stage of development, six electric models of three Group brands are to be produced at the plant from 2021 onwards.

“The start of production of the ID. in a good 12 months' time will herald a new era for Volkswagen, comparable with the first Beetle or the first Golf,” says Thomas Ulbrich, Volkswagen Brand Board Member responsible for E-Mobility. “We intend to take e-mobility out of its niche and to make the electric car affordable for millions of people. Efficient, modern production facilities will be the key. This is why we are bundling electric car production across the Group's brands at Zwickau.”

With the ID. produced in Zwickau, Volkswagen intends to deliver to customers for the first time a vehicle produced with an entirely neutral CO2 balance over the entire delivery and production chain. In the production process, the emission of CO2 is to be avoided or reduced as far as possible. Climate protection measures will be taken to compensate for unavoidable emissions.

The CO2 avoidance measures in the production of the ID. also include the energy-intensive production of battery cells. It has been agreed that our suppliers will use “green” power from renewable sources for the production of the cells. This will be a major lever for further improving the life cycle analysis of the electric car.

Power supplies at the Zwickau plant were already changed over to 100% eco-power in 2017. By the start of production of the ID., the remaining emissions from the compact cogeneration plant at the facility and the entire supply chain will be compensated for by climate protection projects certified to officially approved standards.

The transformation of the Zwickau vehicle plant has already started and will be implemented in several phases. The conversion of the production lines started in the summer of 2018. The first of the two production lines will be modified step-by-step up to the planned start of ID. production in November 2019.

The second line at the plant will be changed over following the same procedure by the end of 2020 and will start production the same year. The maximum production capacity is to be increased from the present figure of 1,350 to 1,500 vehicles per day, which will probably be reached from 2021 onwards. The transformation of the plant is proceeding rapidly in accordance with the schedule.

E-mobility will create jobs with a viable long-term future at the Zwickau plant. The 7,700 employees at this location are currently being prepared for the new technology by a major advanced training campaign. In total, the Zwickau workforce is to complete about 13,000 training days by the end of 2019.

The course of the transformation, Volkswagen's Zwickau plant is gradually to become a model factory that is digital, flexible and highly efficient. Equipment at the plant will include smart Industry 4.0 robots and driverless transport systems to take components to the assembly lines fully autonomously. The degree of automation in assembly itself will be almost tripled; nevertheless, the workforce at the plant will remain largely stable. All in all, Volkswagen is investing about €1.2 billion ($1.36 billion) in the transformation of the Zwickau plant.

All the electric cars to be built at Zwickau in the future will be based on the modular electric toolkit (MEB). This was developed especially for full- electric cars and makes full use of the possibilities of e-mobility.