Volkswagen Group China has announced that production in its Changchun factory, which it runs in a joint project with China's FAW Group, has gradually resumed as the city relaxes COVID restrictions.
The car maker has approximately 3.14 million car sales in the Chinese market and is the biggest brand in China in terms of sales. The Chinese market is one of the Group's most important.
Volkswagen's operations in China include the manufacture, sale, and service of complete vehicles, parts, and components, engines, and transmission systems, as well as the sale and service of imported vehicles.
After the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, production in Zwickau and Dresden was forced to halt due to the inability to deliver cable bundles from Ukrainian factories. The market was also impacted by the production halt.
Due to a shortage of parts from suppliers, Volkswagen Group China announced on March 30 that production at its Shanghai factory would be temporarily stopped.
Now, fast forward to the present, and VW has announced that production at its German electric car plants will resume next week. Despite the fact that next week is April's last week, sources say that the corporation is beginning manufacturing ahead of schedule.
"Since late last week, we've been gradually preparing to resume operations in our Changchun plant," stated the Japanese manufacturer in a statement. "However, full-scale operation time has yet to be defined," it added.
Volkswagen initially stated that production lines would not be restarted until early April. It will now take place almost a week earlier, and it will be done in two shifts. They stated that the situation with component supply "improved in the short term," and that the resumption of ID.3 production in Dresden is scheduled for Wednesday, March 30.
"Our focus is to get cars to customers as soon as possible," a VW spokesman said. It is unknown whether specific models will be prioritized.
While the ID.3, ID.4, ID.5, Audi Q4 e-Tron (and Sportback), and the Cupra Born are being reassembled, the assembly lines at Skoda's main plant in Mladá Boleslav remain idle. Production of the Skoda Enyaq iV is expected to resume there "in the coming weeks."
This affects on availability, at least in Germany. Orders will be "limited in the near future and temporarily," according to Skoda Auto Deutschland, and will include two smaller battery variants, the Enyaq iV 50 and 60, and an all-wheel-drive model with a larger battery, the 80x.
The best-selling Enyaq iV 80 and Enyaq Coupé are still available without restrictions. It is unknown how long the order pause for these three will last.
