Political visit at the e-car plant

SPD chairwoman Andrea Nahles and Federal Labour Minister Hubertus Heil informed themselves in Zwickau about the progress and challenges of the transformation into Europes largest electric car plant.

Kilian: “E-mobility and digitalization mean profound structural change”

Hubertus Heil, Federal Minister of Labour and Social Affairs (centre right), and Andrea Nahles, SPD party leader (centre left), discuss modern qualification and training elements with Volkswagen Sachsen employees. Here: VR glasses for virtual training of logistics processes.

Volkswagen has a mission: making e-mobility affordable for everyone. To fulfill it, Volkswagen is currently transforming itself into the leading provider of e-mobility. To do so, the company is systematically forging ahead with its electric offensive and the transformation of the factories in Zwickau, Dresden, Emden and Hanover to become production locations for electric vehicles. The Zwickau facility is the trailblazer for this transformation, with the compact ID.¹⁾ already going into production there at the end of this year.

At the Zwickau location, Volkswagen is currently launching the biggest qualification and training offensive in its history. About 8,000 employees will be prepared for the important task of ensuring timely and high-quality production of the first purely electric vehicles at the plant in late 2019.

Europe’s largest and most efficient electric vehicle factory is currently taking shape in Zwickau. This is the world’s first complete transformation of a major car manufacturing facility. Going forward, the factory will exclusively build electric vehicles based on the Modular Electric Toolkit (MEB), and will have an annual production capacity of 330,000 units.

A Volkswagen employee shows SPD party leader Andrea Nahles (right) and Federal Labour Minister Hubertus Heil (centre) the latest automations in vehicle construction.

Along with further fundamental organizational and structural changes, this is an enormous endeavor for the company and the workforce. Federal Minister of Labour, Hubertus Heil, and SPD parliamentary group leader, Andrea Nahles, were joined by Volkswagen Board Member for Human Resources, Gunnar Kilian, and the Chairman of Volkswagen’s General and Group Works Council, Bernd Osterloh, on a fact-finding visit to the Zwickau plant to gain a first-hand impression of the progress and challenges of this transformation.

Following the working discussions, the guests went to Hall 2 where a marketplace presented qualification and innovation topics such as virtual welding, 3D printing, innovative charging structure, and human-robot cooperation.

The visitors also engaged in discussions with employees and startups. As Kilian explained, “e-mobility and digitalization mean profound structural change for our industry. We can only master the transformation if policy makers and the company engage in a constructive dialog to make automobile production in Germany, and thus hundreds of thousands of jobs in this key industry, future-proof.”

The SPD parliamentary group leader and SPD-chairperson Andrea Nahles, said: “The automotive industry is facing a multitude of challenges posed by the diesel scandal, digitalization, climate protection and changes in the global economic situation. Politics must set out clear and binding requirements for the auto industry, but at the same time must not overburden the sector. Because the best cars in the world must still be built in Germany in 2030 and the industry’s skilled workforce must be able to earn good money. That is why I am proposing an ‘auto industry industrial partnership 2030’ at the highest political level. Because we must bring together all the different goals and to do that, we need a framework for jointly discussing them within the overall context.”

Federal Minister of Labour, Hubertus Heil, commented: “The competence, creativity and commitment of the workforce are a company’s greatest asset. Our new legislation on qualification opportunities supports companies in their efforts to qualify today’s employees to work in the world of tomorrow and beyond. As a result, car manufacturers such as Volkswagen will be among those who can benefit from retaining skilled specialists in the longer term.”

Kilian emphasized that “this is about identifying the risks and seizing the opportunities offered by digitalization and e-mobility for Germany as an industrial location. I am confident that the Federal government has a keen interest in that and is creating the right framework.

Change in Zwickau: An employee shows SPD party leader Andrea Nahles the latest developments in 3D printing - including the managing directors of Volkswagen Sachsen, Dirk Coers (left) and Reinhard de Vries (hidden).

One good example is the recent legislation on qualification opportunities initiated by the Federal Minister of Labour. This legislation will help employees to gear up for working in tomorrow’s world. That is pro-active job security.”

The Chairman of Volkswagen’s General and Group Works Council, Bernd Osterloh, is also backing cooperation between policy makers and the company for successful structural change: “Time and again we have made it clear that the road to e-mobility urgently needs the support of policy makers. By that we mean very concrete initiatives that are not just theory, but actually function in real working life. I am convinced the new legislation on qualification opportunities provides this kind of support. We have often been critical of the political parties in recent weeks. This initiative, though, deserves special praise, because this legislation gives us momentum for the conversion that lies ahead, a conversion that will be difficult and where our most important task will be to make sure that no employee gets left behind.”

The pilot site in Zwickau has already given Volkswagen extensive insights into the qualifications required for the transformation and the optimal training formats to qualify employees from different fields for their new tasks. Via its network of academies, the company will share this know-how with all its sites worldwide affected by the transformation.

There will be further additions to Volkswagen’s production network for electric vehicles following the pilot phase in Zwickau. The decision has been taken to produce electric cars at the Emden and Hanover factories in Germany as well. Dresden was completely converted to the production of electric vehicles back in April 2017.