Germany-based Volkswagen (VW) is considering closing plants in its home country as automakers in the European Union (EU) grapple with a flood of cheap China-made cars that are increasingly making up a share of auto sales in the continent.
“The European automotive industry is in a very demanding and serious situation,” Volkswagen Group CEO Oliver Blume said on Monday, suggesting VW may close some of its plants in Germany and drop some job protections for auto workers to cut costs.
A VW plant closure in Germany would be the first time the automaker closed a plant in its home country and the first time it closed a plant worldwide since closing its Westmoreland, Pennsylvania, plant in 1988.
The move would come as Chinese automakers, offering highly subsidized cars sometimes made with slave labor, grow their market share across Europe — triggering the EU to impose temporary tariffs on China-made Electric Vehicles (EVs).
Chinese automakers scored a record 11 percent share of the EU market in June of this year. A policy analysis published in May suggests that China-made EVs will account for a quarter of all EVs in Europe by the end of the year.
VW executives first came under fire in 2019 for business operations in Xinjiang, China — a region that is home to the largest internment of minorities in “concentration camps” since World War II. At the time, executives said their operating in the Xinjiang region was “based purely on economics.”
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.