Volkswagen to close German plant, a first in their company history | Hacker News Reader

Volkswagen to close German plant, a first in their company history

nytimes.com

32 pointsOgsyedIE19 comments

This was the 'Glaeserne Manufaktur', more like a vanity project for VWs failed luxury car adventure than an actual manufacturing plant. I'm kinda surprised that VW didn't close the plant when it stopped building the Phaeton.

To give you an idea how insignificant this plant was for VW: about 160k vehicles were built there (mostly by hand) over its entire lifetime since 2000 and employed at most around 500 people (down to 230 in 2025).

I took a tour back when it was making the Phaeton and the Bentley Continental and it was a great tour and experience. Kind of like a flagship location rather than just another factory.

I live next to their Chattanooga (US) production facility. Lots of my neighbors work there, both on the lines and in the offices.

They silo'd the entire third shift, this past summer. Hours are weakening. The recently-won UAW (union) membership is up for a challenge vote to dissolve it — before ever ratifying a contract.

Wouldn't surprise me that if UAW remains in place, VW will close down this facility (moving it elsewhere, if at all).

Fingers crossed VW starts making better vehicles, because they are a major employer in this city. Suggestions: hybrid drivetrains (not full EV).

Tariffs, labour- and energy costs. Is it just me or do EU seem to lack a competitive edge?

This specific plant employed less than 500 people in its heyday and never had a 'competitive edge' because it was originally built to manufacture luxury cars mostly via manual labor (specifically the doomed VW Phaeton).

To be clear, it was this 'factory': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transparent_Factory

It never really made sense after the Phaeton, which it was built for, comprehensively failed (expected production 20k/year, demand never went over 10k/year); it has been effectively closed before, and honestly it's kind of surprising it wasn't closed a decade ago.

BMW seem to be fine with that. VW’s problem is too many staff, they need to slim down to become competitive again.

I assure you, there is no more layoffs to do at any auto manufacturer that will effect the bottom line. IF that is the problem, the brands dead anyways.

I assure you that the biggest cost to VW, Ford, JLR, Renault etc is: 1. Building/investing in Chinese domestic market (IE, building plants in china to sell to their market) 2. lobbying governments to dissalow chinese branded/manufactured OEMs in western markets 3. Litigation on IP against those same chinese manufacturers they are both working with in chinese market, and preventing entry into their western market.

These problems "can be gotten around", by simply accepting this is reality. VW is doing such unfortunatley, while a company like BMW REALLY pretends "it's fine", as they have way too much cash doing nothing.

VW has 680,000 employees to make 9 million vehicles a year. Toyota does the same with just 375,000. VW is bloated and needs to slim down.

Add to that insane competition from Chinese EVs, and the chips debacle from earlier this year.

If we become the same shithole as the US of A, we could produce very cheap cars. But for that goal, we have start or fuel some foreign wars, making the own population poorer and dumber every day. At least we have a residue of normality these days.

Can you please not post in the flamewar style to HN? We're trying for something else here.

If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

Germans are missing that cheap Russian energy.

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