Europe’s largest automaker, Volkswagen, is to shed 50,000 jobs by the end of the decade, as it faces falling sales in China and North America and punitive US tariffs imposed by Donald Trump.
The 10-brand group, whose luxury subsidiaries Porsche and Audi are also under pressure, said the jobs would go in Germany, affecting the entire group, as part of a restructuring drive in light of the darkening global business climate.
The group had already struck a deal with German trade unions at the end of 2024 to slash 35,000 jobs by 2030, in part by natural attrition through retirement and other staff departures.
VW in North America has a huge reliability problem and the Canadian government was in a $13B subsidy deal in Ontario.
Canada offered more than $13 billion for VW plant: gov’t source | Driving https://share.google/DEUZrvrthGygDkTLY
What?
According to Consumer Reports, Volkswagen generally ranks around average in reliability, often placing in the middle of the pack (16th out of 26 brands in recent evaluations). While some models like the Jetta have “Great” reliability, others such as the Taos and Atlas have faced, or are predicted to have, significant issues with electronics and powertrains.
iD4, 14 recalls since 2023. Ratings: Consumer Reports gave the 2023 model a low rating due to these issues. JD Power scored the 2023 model’s quality/reliability at 54/100.
VW owners are the weirdest fanboys.
I have zero idea why there would be 14 recalls of ID4 in Canada, here we have had none that I know of. It is on the contrary considered among the most reliable together with BMW and Mercedes, slightly above Hyundai.
The only recall I can find on the ID.4 was due to a battery overheating issue, where it could catch fire, but the issue was merely a software fix.
Admittedly a serious enough issue, but an easy fix.
Such recalls are not uncommon, for instance Hyundai had it here with the Kona, but way more expensive for Hyundai since the entire battery needed to be replaced.
The ID.4 battery is in 26 modules if I remember correctly, and defect modules can be replaced separately if needed, making it one of the more serviceable batteries.
Tesla has had a LOT of recalls, but in reality most of them are not really recalls, because they were things that could be fixed with an over the air update.
Regarding VW reliability we have by yearly mandatory safety checks here in Denmark, and also Germany, Netherlands and Sweden.
In those safety checks, VW is in the absolute top, I linked the story on the enough musk spam sub, and get replies from the other 3 countries, that the picture was the exact same in those countries.
https://fdm.dk/nyheder/nyt-om-trafik-og-biler/tesla-skandalen-fortsaetter-naesten-hver-anden-tesla-model-y-dumper-til-syn
In the chart you can see Tesla failing 45% for model Y and 34% for model 3, and 2% for VW ID.4.
(Tesla is unheard of bad, which is the reason for the article.)
I have never seen anything regarding VW like what you claim is happening in Canada? And why don’t you supply the source you are quoting?
I am not saying VW is good because they are better than Tesla, that just happens to be the main thing the article is about.
I’m saying VW is good because they top the chart as the car with the least failures at the mandatory safety checks, and it’s in line with what I hear from reviewers and owners.
All 3 data points match up, and your story true or not, is very extreme outlier from the norm. And I don’t think it’s the weather, because then we should have heard similar stories from Norway, Finland and Sweden. So kind of a mystery if true, but maybe the article you omitted to link to has an explanation?