Volkswagen Will Automate Work Up To 20-30% Production At Trinity Factory

JAKARTA - Volkswagen is considering automating 20-30% production at the upcoming Trinity plant, near Wolfsburg. This was revealed by plant head Sebastian Schmickartz on Tuesday, October 11.

"The career is still 90% manual work," Sebastian Schmickartz said. quoted by Reuters, at a summit in Wolfsburg. "This is what we want to change with a new factory. We see an automation of 20-30%."

The Trinity plant, where the German automaker will build a new flagship electric sedan, will start pre-serie production by 2025, with production officially starting in 2026.

The key to automating more assembly lines will switch to module-based strategy, said Schmickartz. This mandates 50 parts to one through techniques such as die casting to generate front-end, back-end and roof modules.

Volkswagen's head of brand production, Christian Vollmer, told Reuters earlier this year that the automaker hopes this production strategy will help increase its productivity and maintain its lead in the European market.

The casting technique in car manufacturing has been popularized by Tesla as an alternative to a more labor-intensive method to assemble several metal panels branded with crushed zones to absorb energy during accidents.