Volkswagen is transforming one of its biggest factories in Germany to produce electric cars rather than combustion vehicles, making it Europe’s largest electric vehicle plant.
Volkswagen announced that its Zwickau plant had produced its last model with a combustion engine, and the plant will, from that day on, produce only electric vehicles.
The Zwickau plant claimed the title of the largest electric car plant in Europe, but not for long, as Tesla’s Gigafactory in Berlin is under construction and will be complete sometime next year. The Zwickau site is roughly 1.8 million square meters, while Tesla’s Berlin Gigafactory will be twice as big-at around 3 million square meters.
However, the plant will require remodeling to handle EV production and will cost the factory around 1.2 billion euros to complete the task. The factory’s 8,000 employees will need to be trained to work with high-voltage systems and will have to achieve more than 20,000 days of training as a collective by the end of this year.
Seat and Audi will also produce electric cars at the Zwickau site, along with Volkswagen’s ID.3 and ID.4 EVs, and an electric SUV. Soon after, three other group brands will also produce electric vehicles at the site.
