German Chancellor Angela Merkel presided over the departure of the first unit of the Volkswagen ID.3 from the Zwickau assembly line, the first plant that the German consortium has converted to produce electric vehicles on its specific platform for them, the MEB.

The first 100% electric vehicle of the new era of Volkswagen will reach the Spanish market next year. In Germany, the basic version with 300 kilometers of autonomy will be below 30,000 euros without including public aid for its purchase.

The inauguration was attended by the Prime Minister of Saxony, Michael Kretschmer , the CEO of the Volkswagen Group, Herbert Diess , and the head of electric mobility of the Volkswagen Executive Committee, Thomas Ulbrich .

Zwickau is the first of the four plants that Volkswagen will convert to assemble electric vehicles on the MEB platform. Zwickau will be followed by Hannover , where the family of electric vans, Endem and Dresden will be made .

Outside Germany, the strongest bet is Mlada Boleslav , Skoda headquarters. In this first wave of electric vehicles that arrives until 2025 it is not foreseen that neither of the two Spanish factories of the group ( Seat Martorell and VW Navarra ) include the MEB platform nor, therefore, obtain the award of any electric model.

Zwickau will complete its total transformation in mid-2020, when the VW Golf Variant is discontinued at this plant. Thus in 2021, its first fully electric year, 330,000 vehicles per year will leave this plant, at a rate of 1,500 daily . Now, its production rate is 1,350 units.

The German factory has a workforce of 8,000 workers . The German group has committed to maintain this number until 2029. That despite the installation of 1,700 robots and promoting the inclusion of collaborative robots with workers. The plant will have 500 autonomous guide vehicles to bring the components to the production line. Zwickau's transformation will cost Volkswagen 1.2 billion euros .

Part of this investment will also be used to train workers, since 1,500 of them will obtain the certificate of battery manipulators , a required title since they have to deal with hazardous materials. Volkswagen says that by 2020, the entire workforce will be fully trained for the manufacture of electric vehicles.

Herbert Diess recalled that the Volkswagen group will invest 30,000 million euros until 2028 and will have 70 electric models among all its brands. Of these, 20 will be of the Volkswagen teaches that monopolize an investment of 9,000 million euros .

The European plants transformed in Europe are accompanied by two in China and one in the US. In fact, the Volkswagen group has practically finished its two plants in the Asian giant in Anting (SHanghai) where it manufactures thanks to its joint venture with SAIC and Foshan, in which it joins with its Chinese partner FAW, which is very likely to manufacture the electrical units there before the first unit leaves the Tesla factory in Shanghai.

In fact, the forecast of the Volkswagen group is to reach 22 million electric vehicles worldwide based on the MEB platform, 11.2 million of which would be manufactured in China.

From the first wave of conversion of plants worldwide, it would be necessary to mention that of Chattanooga (USA) , where the VW Passat and Jetta and the Atlas are manufactured, and where it will invest 800 million to assemble electric within the agreement that the German consortium He was forced to manufacture electric vehicles after manipulating diesel engine emissions.

In Zwickau the first electric will be produced not only from VW but also from Seat , specifically the Seat el-born , and from Skoda , since here six different models will be assembled for these three brands of the group ( three Volkswagen, two Audi and one Seat )

Audi and Porsche

In addition to the vehicles of the generalist brands, the Volkswagen group has Porsche and Audi that have jointly developed the PPE (premium platform electric) platform for zero-emission high-performance cars of both brands.

Porsche has already completed the adaptation of its Zuffenhausen factory, where it produces the legendary 911 and for a few weeks its first 100% electric, the Porsche Taycan . In the same way Audi produces its first zero emission electric vehicle in its factory in Belgium.

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