German Chancellor Angela Merkel was present at the ceremony
The first car in the new generation of electric vehicles (EVs) – a white ID.3 – rolled off the assembly line watched by Federal Chancellor Dr. Angela Merkel and Group CEO Dr. Herbert Diess.
The Volkswagen Group plans to sell some 22 million EVs worldwide by 2028, thus helping EVs make the breakthrough.
The Zwickau plant has a key role to play in this endeavor: For the first time, a large car manufacturing plant is being entirely converted to e-mobility, with investments running at €1.2 billion.
Zwickau is already scheduled to produce some 100,000 electric models next year. From 2021, up to 330,000 EVs will leave the assembly line each year, making the site the largest EV factory in Europe.
The ID.3 is based on Volkswagen’s Modular Electric Drive Toolkit (MEB). The basic version is priced at under €30,000 in Germany. The ID.3 will be launched throughout Europe in summer 2020. Over 35,000 international customers have already reserved an ID.3 and paid a pre-booking deposit.
With the phased transformation of the Zwickau factory, Volkswagen is fully converting a large car manufacturing plant to e-mobility for the first time. Some €1.2 billion is being invested in the conversion. In the final expansion stage from 2021, six MEB models from three Group brands will be built in Zwickau.
Qualification measures are preparing all 8,000 employees for EV production and working with high-voltage technology. In total, the Zwickau team will have completed some 13,000 training days by the end of 2020.