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.
That’s the same company that just three weeks ago “found” 6 billion euros, just before they had to determine how much money in bonuses the management should get, right?
That’s a bingo
VW makes cars with blinding LED headlights that are obviously unsafe, and in general just very assholish
so, fuck them, and everybody responsible for that can fucking die and the world would be a better place.
It’s the company that screwed the earth by deliberately cheating on emission tests, fucked over employees by declaring they didn’t have money for them before spontaneously finding 6 billion euros when it was time to determine management bonuses (before now declaring they want to fire 50k people), built military cars for the Nazis using forced labourers and concentration camp inmates when they promised they’d build private, civilian cars (which led to hundreds of thousands of people to save money for a product that didn’t exist), ratted out its employees to the Brazilian dictatorship that then promptly started torturing them, is now benefitting from the Uyghur mistreatment in Xinjiang and has a CEO that recently used a Nazi slogan as a pun.
And you’re complaining that they use the same dumb headlights as all other companies.
I don’t need to complain about everything all of the time. that would be annoying and nobody would listen.
IMHO, VW has no right to exist anymore and the CEOs should be held personally accountable for the loss of 50000 jobs. They failed to innovate while demanding huge subsidies from the EU. They cheated in order to make their diesels look more economical. They are expensive and poor quality for the price you pay in the EU.
Fuck them.
What a ridiculous take!?
VW group make the best affordable EVs in Europe and have 50+% marketshare.
Why is such a blatantly moronic comment upvoted?
The reason they are in trouble is that it is expensive to have double the product line while also developing new EV models.
And of course increased competition from China, and US Tariffs that are also noted in the article.What exactly is this “innovation” you complain that they aren’t doing?
And no VW has NOT received huge subsidies from EU, where did you get that idea?
EV makers in USA have received subsidies in the form of tax credits. And in China they have through a diverse system of support for developing and building EV’s and batteries.In EU subsidies are required to NOT favor any single country, so reduced prices for an EV has counted exactly as much for a Tesla as for VW, and DESPITE that, VW has taken huge marketshare in EV.
I honestly get a little sad when I see such uninformed posts as the above. And that people for some reason seem to agree with it.
VW (and other EU car manufacturers) could and should have seen the EV market coming and instead they invested in covering up diesel emissions and lobbying the EU to postpone environmental policies. Dieselgate was a thing back in the day and VW was at the forefront.
I should have amended my first post by ‘lobbying’ instead of ‘demanding subsides’ though.
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
VW in North America has a huge reliability problem
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.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?
Because, sadly, this place has become a left wing version of places like r/conservative and anything that supports our worldview is sadly just upvoted. I’ve come to believe it’s nothing more than a circlejerk now as there is no diversity in opinions.
I don’t disagree (even though I’m more progressive myself), but I think the general political sentiment on Lemmy is more anarchist and anti-capitalist than anything else. It’s the same comments for basically any post that mentions or even hints at a company name.
seems like you’re keeping the scales of political discourse balanced and fair.
you’re doing gods work! keep it up!
/s (in the event you thought I was being sincere)
Any ideas that can’t be challenged are just dogmas. And a mindset of “any opposition to any of my ideas for any reason means you’re an enemy” is just tribalism.
It’s just as stupid on the left as it is on the right. The world isn’t black and white.
this reeks of “so much for the tolerant left”.
Ideas are challenged, there’s no dogmas here.
and yeah, if your position is “what’s happening in the world today isn’t a fascist coup lead by conservative christian nationalists”, then you are my enemy.
just because I’m tolerant of others opinions doesn’t mean I have to unilaterally respect all positions.
I believe in an EU with only the minimum number of cars that’s really needed and a lot more bikes and trains.
May VW go bankrupt on its own lies and subscriptions.
And the world invests in public transit in a really big, unprecedented manner asap.
What subscriptions?
Regarding the lies I suspect you mean diesel-gate. Yes diesel-gate was because the test was rigged, which can be called a form of lie, but everybody did it, so why target VW in particular?
There is a “subscription” to the App for my ID.4, but it’s free, so what is the problem?The brands that have really aired the idea of subscriptions is BMW and Stelantis, but maybe you are just confused?
What does the app allow you to do. My Mercedes can open and close windows amongst various other things but only if you pay a subscription. 😞
What’s worse is it has a dash cam built in but you have to pay £200 to unlock it. Yet I bought this car used and presumably the previous owner had that as it was specced out, but as it changed hands I’d have to pay. That said I love the car and the quality is great.
My app is extremely limited, I can see charging state, and plan charging, and it has a map where I can see where the car is, and I can turn air condition on and off or set a timer/planner for it. Then there is a health report with a lot of status items.
I don’t think it gets much more basic than that.PS: It also has some sort of roadside assistance, but the one through my insurance is way better. The one VW offer also seems to be limited to if there are injuries. But why would I call them for that?
Finally there’s a number to a help line. Which I’ve never used.The only thing I have missed, and only once, is the ability to lock the doors.
Open and close windows could probably be nice in the summer, (We bought ours November 2025) but we have dark rear window and in rear doors too, so it shouldn’t get too hot if parked correctly, and the air-condition is very efficient. It does however have a function to control all 4 windows at the same time.Despite the simplistic app, we are very happy with our ID.4. There are so many clever little details, including how many of the automatic features work. Lighting up the surrounding when you get out if it’s just a little dark, lights in the cabin when you park, how the fob turn on the screen before you get to the car. Phantom pedal for the trunk. The convenience of the HUD. The fully automatic climate control, which I didn’t even touch for months after we bought the car, because it was just right.
But to be fair, our old car was rather old, so this is a HUGE step up. Despite out old car was also a very nice car with full leather cabin.
I bet a Mercedes beat it, but we don’t drive enough to justify buying a Mercedes on our budget.
USA, any VW dealership:
- VW Flex
- SIXT+
- Remote access sub
- Navigation Sub
- Plus Navigation Sub
- ID.3 power upgrade sub
Lies:
- Dieselgate
- Union busting Tennessee
- German zero impact factories
- Belgium manufacturing plant pollution
Take your pick. VW has been failing for so long that they moved to subscriptions to pick up the bottom line from their remaining customers, then complain no one wants their vehicles.
VW: Once the king of affordable and reliable, now just garbage.
May they fail miserably and fade into obscurity in my lifetime.
Sincerely, a VW hater since Dieselgate.
But all Diesel manufacturers faked emissions data. All of them.
Then fuck them all. The individuals involved, just “following orders” or giving them, should have all been charged with fraud.
OK I don’t know most of those services.
VW Flex is a car rental service, or some sort of car sharing program, why are you mad that VW offer such a service? If you don’t want it, you are 100% free not to rent a car from VW or anyone else.
SIXT isn’t even VW but BMW!I can see you may have a point about some of the other items.
But here we don’t have those, but the app is also very limited here, and I cannot lock the doors of my car remotely, something I found weird, since it must be extremely easy to make.
Navigation is however included without charge. And there are no subscriptions.Regarding Dieselgate that’s moronic, VW was just unlucky to be the first that was caught, all the other manufacturers of diesel cars did the exaxt same thing, and VW wasn’t even the worst.
I have no idea what the points below are supposed to be about. Except VW works fine with unions in Europe, but USA has no protections of unions, so blame your government and fellow Americans for that one too. Absolutely fight for unions, If I were American I would support a unionized brand as well.You make some good points, but I don’t get why you start out with points in both sections that seem pretty stupid non issues, apart from diesel-gate of course being an issue, but since everybody did it, you can’t really use that for anything.
OK I don’t know most of those services.
That’s because they vary from country to country.VW Flex is a car rental service, or some sort of car sharing program, why are you mad that VW offer such a service? If you don’t want it, you are 100% free not to rent a car from VW or anyone else.
SIXT isn’t even VW but BMW!When I briefly looked at an ID.4 and ID Buzz they insisted, even though it was untrue, that VW Flex and SIXT+ were the only options for me to lease… SIXT+ is used here for Porsche and certain VW models, but is more a rental service than a leasing service. That’s definitely true.
I can see you may have a point about some of the other items.
But here we don’t have those, but the app is also very limited here, and I cannot lock the doors of my car remotely, something I found weird, since it must be extremely easy to make.
Navigation is however included without charge. And there are no subscriptions.Yup. Again, this is VW getting away with whatever they can where they can.
I have no idea what the points below are supposed to be about. Except VW works fine with unions in Europe, but USA has no protections of unions, so blame your government and fellow Americans for that one too. Absolutely fight for unions, If I were American I would support a unionized brand as well.
Well, I have family in Frankfurt, DE that also hates VW as of late. They just announced for example they’re laying 50k people off worldwide… not because they’re suffering, but because of lower than expected profits. Post tax profits dropped? boohooo. Eat shit VW.
You make some good points, but I don’t get why you start out with points in both sections that seem pretty stupid non issues, apart from diesel-gate of course being an issue, but since everybody did it, you can’t really use that for anything.
I have no excuse for this other than it was an energetic response full of emotion that prevented better articulation lol.
they insisted, even though it was untrue, that VW Flex and SIXT+ were the only options for me to lease
That’s such a despicable salesman trick, I almost completely lost respect for a friend once, when I found out he did something almost identical to his customers.
IDK if it is company policy for VW to do that, it could be the salesperson.Post tax profits dropped? boohooo. Eat shit VW.
It’s a capitalist world we live in, but unfortunately of all the models we have tried, democracy with regulated capitalism seems to be the least bad model we have figured out how to make work somewhat reasonably.
That said profits are necessary for future investments, without profits the company dies. That would be true even if society wasn’t capitalistic. Then the resources for investments in maintenance and improvements would just have to come from somewhere else.
