Audi's Brussels plant is assembling an 80,000 euro electric SUV, which turns out to be too expensive for Europeans. After 2025, production will probably relocate to Mexico. Workers and unions are not happy.
The case of this car factory in Belgium that has cutting-edge and low-emission technologies, and has been active since 1949 in the production of Volkswagen models, now seems to be an accurate indicator of a trend that is already underway: European plants that produce electric cars are too expensive compared to EU market demand. For this reason, Audi will stop production and this plant, which is in the municipality of Forest, will be sold. As the factory's communications director Peter D'hoore explains to Euronews, there are two choices: either convert the factory for the production of other Volkswagen group models and components or sell it to other car brands.
Both are complicated, because the proposals received do not meet the expected standards or criteria set by Volkswagen for potential buyers. "Only one potential investor has agreed to rework his offer and now he will have some time to do so. It is important to us that as many people as possible remain employed at this site," says D'hoore, without specifying where production will be relocated.
** Audi in Brussels employs 3.000 people, plus another thousand in related industries, and the unions are on a war footing: they are asking the company to sell not to the highest bidder, but to those who will guarantee the greates.