Volkswagen Temporarily Stops Electric Car Production At Zwickau Factory, Here's Why

Volkswagen factory in Zwickau, Germany. (Doc. Volkswagen Group)

JAKARTA - Volkswagen (VW) is again facing problems at its assembly site in Zwickau, Germany, which forced them to lay off production of several models with the MEB platform. However, this problem is different from what happened last September.

If in September the manufacturer faced problems due to a decline in demand followed by subsidy reductions with rising inflation, the latest problems in the facility arose due to a lack of electric motor supply.

Reporting from Automotive News, Thursday, November 9, the German manufacturer is currently short on supply of the latest APP550 electric motor from the Kassel factory. It is known that the production of the electric drive is currently limited.

The latest electric drive is used in the latest versions of Volkswagen ID.4, Volkswagen ID.5, Audi Q4 e-tron, and Audi Q4 Sportback e-tron produced in Zwickau. This certainly has an impact on production which is likely to stall for three weeks.

Although this problem has not yet been disclosed at the beginning of this problem, the company hopes that the production congestion will only be temporary. Currently, manufacturers will use various options to keep production running.

It is reported that VW will switch production of APP550 to Emden's plant, so that production from ID.7 models and several other models is not disrupted.

This is the company's umpteenth problem at the Zwickau factory since it was converted from producing ICE-engined cars to 100 percent all-electric cars (EVs). The company says that the factory can produce six models by pushing production figures to 330,000 per year.

Of course, this must be corrected immediately by the company considering they have developed a strategy plan for an EV in the future. What's more, the Zwickau factory produces new models based on the SSP platform or the upcoming Trinity project.