As Tesla kicks off production at its new German plant this month, Volkswagen is weeks away from finalizing plans for a 2-billion-euro ($2.2 billion) electric vehicle (EV) factory that is expected to Will bring pace with his American rival.
Tesla says it can already churn out a Model Y in 10 hours at its new Giga Berlin-Brandenburg factory in Gruenheide near the German capital, while Volkswagen takes three times as long to build its ID.3 electric car. could.
The German auto giant now aims to reduce production times with its “Trinity” EV plant, which is expected to reduce production times in 2026 by using techniques such as large die casting and cutting the number of components in its cars by several hundred. should do.
“Our goal is clear: we want to set the standard with our production,” Volkswagen brand production head Christian Vollmer told Reuters in an interview. “If we can get 10 hours, we’ve achieved something big.”
The carmaker is improving productivity at a rate of about 5% annually, but must make big leaps to maintain its upper hand in the European market, Vollmer said, without providing a new percentage target.
Volkswagen, the world’s second largest carmaker after Japan’s Toyota, with brands ranging from Skoda, Seat and VW to Audi, Porsche and Bentley, has a 25% share of the European EV market, ahead of Tesla at 13%.
But Tesla’s presence in the country has intensified pressure on German carmakers to both master and ramp up EV production, and Volkswagen chief executive Herbert Diess has warned that the Germans must accelerate to avoid being beaten on their own turf. Needed.
‘Ignited the Drive’
Volkswagen’s goals of simplifying product range and streamlining production align with a broader trend in the industry as carmakers scramble to find cash to fund the electric transition — and rivals like Tesla kept up with There are people who don’t have to juggle making EVs as well as cars. With combustion engine.
“Tesla really ignited the campaign to reduce part count and create simpler products,” said Evan Horetsky, a partner at McKinsey who was previously in charge of engineering at Tesla’s new Brandenburg plant. “Legacy manufacturers have a more difficult time because they have to maintain current orders.”
A Tesla spokesperson said one of the reasons it wants to produce its Model Y vehicles in Germany within the 10-hour time frame is that it uses two giant casting presses, or giga-presses, to create the rear. exerts 6,000 tons of pressure. Vehicle.
Its Grünheide press shop can produce 17 components in under six minutes. With six more Giga-Press on the way, Tesla will soon be making the front of the car with Giga-Press as well.
“That’s why we are so fast,” the spokesman said.
The giga-casting technology VW plans to adopt was popularized by Tesla as an alternative to the more labor-intensive method of assembling multiple stamped metal panels with crumple zones to absorb energy during crashes went.
German luxury carmaker BMW has in the past rejected large castings on the grounds that the high cost of repairs outweighs the low manufacturing cost.
But advocates say that automated driving technology will reduce the frequency of accidents: “Tesla is designing a vehicle that will most likely not result in a serious crash,” said Corey Steuben, president of the manufacturing consulting firm Monroe & Associates.
‘Human-robot collaboration’
While VW may produce some models such as the Tiguan or Polo in Germany and Spain in 18 and 14 hours respectively, its electric ID.3 – made in a factory with six models from three Volkswagen brands – is still in putting together. It takes 30 hours.
At the Trinity Plant, multiple work steps will be condensed into one through automation, reducing the size of the body shop and reducing the number of jobs requiring uncomfortable manual labor, Vollmer calls “human-robot collaboration.” “Expanded.
Volkswagen does not plan to install the Giga-Press at the new plant in Wolfsburg and will instead use the equipment at its factory in Kassel, about 160 km (100 mi) away, and transport the products by train.
US investment bank JPMorgan predicts that Tesla’s Gruenheide factory will produce about 54,000 cars in 2022, 280,000 in 2023, and then 500,000 by 2025.
Volkswagen, which delivered about 452,000 battery-electric vehicles globally last year, has yet to set an output target for the Trinity, which will use its scalable systems platform.
It aims to build 40 million vehicles worldwide on the new platform – which combines multiple internal combustion engines and electric platforms into one – with half of its global production all-electric by 2030.
Tesla, which produced 936,000 cars last year, has said it aims to get 20 million on the road annually by the end of the decade, or nearly double the current annual output of Toyota, now the world’s largest carmaker. Is.
Still, Tesla can expect many challenges as it expands into Germany, from environmental groups securing more water supplies to unions angry about light pollution and overcrowding near the plant to management-heavy work councils. Wages are being reduced by unions and incoming workers. elsewhere.
“Starting production is good, but volume production is the hard part,” Musk told an enthusiastic audience at a celebration at the plant site in October 2021. “It will take longer to reach production than it took to build the factory.”
($1 = 0.8985 Euro)
(Reporting by Victoria Waldersee, Jan Schwartz, Nadine Shimroszyk and Hyun Joo Jin; Editing by David Clarke)
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