Volkswagen’s Zwickau factory will only make electric cars now

The last model with a combustion engine has left the assembly line at Volkswagen’s Zwickau car factory. The seventh generation Golf R Estate with 2.0L petrol engine was produced for a customer in Germany.

From now on, only electric models of Volkswagen and in future also of the sister brands Audi and Seat will be produced in Zwickau.

Since 1904, cars with combustion engines have been built in Zwickau. Over the course of the past 30 years, exactly 6,049,207 Volkswagen cars of the models Polo, Golf, Golf Estate, Passat Saloon and Passat Estate have been produced in Zwickau.

Work has already started in Hall 6 where the Golf Estate has been produced so far. After a conversion phase lasting several weeks during the summer, the first electric vehicles will be produced there at the end of the year – alongside the ID.4, an SUV from the sister brand Audi is also planned. Series production of the ID.3 1st Edition already started at the site in west Saxony in November 2019, and the start of production of the ID.4 will follow this summer.

With the step-by-step transformation of the Zwickau plant, Volkswagen is for the first time switching a large car factory to completely electric vehicles.

The investments for conversion amount to around €1.2 billion. In the final expansion stage from 2021, six MEB models will be built for three Group brands in Zwickau. All 8,000 employees will be prepared for production of electric cars and for handling high-voltage systems as part of various training measures. The Zwickau team will complete around 20,500 days of training by the end of 2020. This will ensure long-term job security at the Zwickau location.

The ID.3 is the first vehicle based on the modular electric toolkit (MEB) from Volkswagen. The platform was developed specifically for electric cars and optimally exploits the possibilities offered by electric mobility.

The ID.3 is characterised by long ranges, plenty of interior space and dynamic driving behaviour. The base version will cost less than 30,000 euros.

Volkswagen www.volkswagen.co.uk