Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on June 3, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 23, 2026
Add as preferred source on GoogleVolkswagen's Wolfsburg plant may shift to a four-day work week by 2027, focusing on EV production and moving combustion engine Golf production to Mexico.
BERLIN (Reuters) - Volkswagen's restructuring of its Wolfsburg plant from 2027 to make way for EV-only production could result in a temporary four-day working week at the plant, works council chief Daniela Cavallo told workers on Tuesday.
Cavallo, a central figure in negotiations with management last year over cost cuts, said unions had agreed minimum capacity utilisation for the transition period, but urged workers to take extra shifts in the run-up to compensate for the likelihood of fewer working hours in years to come.
"We have to make provisions now so that we can draw on them later ... From 2027 onwards, a temporary four-day week is not an unreasonable scenario," Cavallo said.
Volkswagen's deal struck with unions last December to cut costs in Germany included moving production of the combustion engine Golf from Wolfsburg to Mexico from 2027, prompting concern among some employees at the carmaker's headquarters over the future of the plant.
Cavallo sought to assure workers on Tuesday that the plant's future was in safer hands via plans to produce the electric Golf, as well as a successor to its T-Roc compact SUV, by the end of the decade, pointing to the steady decline in demand for the combustion engine version of the iconic VW car.
Golf production in Wolfsburg has declined from over a million in 2015 to just over 300,000 in 2024, a graph compiled by the works council and seen by Reuters showed, with just 250,000 cars forecast for this year.
"The trend is an unstoppable decline ... the Golf must go to Mexico! Sooner or later. Otherwise, our plant will eventually find itself at the bottom of these statistics I just showed," Cavallo said, according to comments published on the company intranet and seen by Reuters.
(Reporting by Victoria Waldersee, Editing by Friederike Heine, Ludwig Burger and David Evans)
Volkswagen's Wolfsburg plant may move to a temporary four-day work week starting in 2027 as part of its restructuring for EV-only production.
The shift is linked to Volkswagen's deal with unions to cut costs, which includes moving combustion engine production to Mexico.
Cavallo assured workers that the plant's future is secure with plans to produce the electric Golf and a successor to the T-Roc compact SUV by the end of the decade.
Golf production at the Wolfsburg plant has significantly declined from over a million units in 2015 to just over 300,000 in 2024.
Cavallo expressed concerns that without moving Golf production to Mexico, the plant could face a decline in production and potentially fall to the bottom of industry statistics.
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