Volkswagen outlines plans to electrify its European factories

The Volkswagen Group will invest €89 billion (around Rs 7,60,870 crore) in new technology within the next four years as part of a push to make a quarter of all its sales battery-electric by the end of 2026. It has also announced plans to electrify more of its European factories, centring much of its flagship EV production in its Wolfsburg and Hanover factories in Germany’s Lower Saxony region.

• ID 3 production to begin at Wolfsburg facility

• Hanover plant to make bodies for Bentley’s EV

• Salzgitter plant to become the firm’s European battery hub

Electrification of Volkswagen’s factories in Europe

The firm has already announced that Volkswagen’s flagship Project Trinity model will be built on a new production line at Wolfsburg, Germany from 2026. 

It has revealed that it will retool a production line at the site to start producing the Volkswagen ID 3 from 2023. The electric hatchback is currently built only in Zwickau, Germany and this move will allow the group to increase output beyond current production limits. The Volkswagen Group is already planning a second EV manufacturing facility to open at Wolfsburg from 2030.

Meanwhile, the production car resulting from Audi’s Artemis project – which will include both the forthcoming A8 successor previewed by the Grandsphere concept and bodies for a future Bentley model – will be built at the Hanover plant in Germany from 2025 onwards. 

While no details have been given, it's likely that bodies for the first full electric Bentley will be built at the site, in a similar way that the Bentayga bodies are currently built in Germany and shipped to Crewe, England. Bentley has been pushing for its first EV to be built at Crewe, but a production location has not yet been confirmed.

Volkswagen will start building the ID Buzz in passenger and cargo forms in Hanover next year, and it has also confirmed that a new ID California camper version will be built alongside those.

Elsewhere, the firm will build two new Porsche models on the pure-electric PPE architecture at its Leipzig facility, with Neckarsulm, Germany becoming home to Audi’s E6 model family. From 2026, the new Audi Q8 E-tron will be built in Brussels, Belgium.

Volkswagen's Salzgitter plant in Germany will become home to the firm’s European battery hub, where its planned unified battery cells will be built from 2025.

Hanover will be used to build axles for MEB models, while the Braunschweig, Kassel and Salzgitter facilities will be used to produce battery systems, rotors and electric motors for MEB-based EVs, while other plants will be prepared for the next-generation SSP platform that will be used by the Artemis models.

Volkswagen in India

The Volkswagen brand’s most recent launch in India was the facelifted Tiguan SUV at Rs 31.99 lakh. In terms of EVs from the Volkswagen Group, Audi has launched the e-tron and e-tron Sportback SUVs (Rs 99.99 lakh-1.18crore) and the e-tron GT four-door coupe (Rs 1.80 crore-2.05 crore), while Porsche has also introduced the Taycan range (Rs 1.50 crore-2.31 crore) in the country. 

All prices are ex-showroom, India