Volkswagen Plans To Eliminate Some Variants And Trim Options

In the wake of the enormous “Dieselgate” scandal, the German multinational car manufacturer is currently trying to cope with its budget cuts in order to pay (literally) for the misconduct.

In fact, Automotive News reports that the group’s largest unit (Volkswagen) plans to eliminate some variants and trim options from its line-up, in order to reduce the complexity and costs, and save about 1.9 billion euros ($2 billion) in the process, as Osterloh – a supervisory board member and one of the most powerful figures at VW Group – said at a briefing with journalists at VW’s headquarters in Wolfsburg.:

“We from the works council have long flagged the huge range of model variants and different components. That brings enormous complexity and adds to costs, for example, for logistics. We can take out costs there on a large scale and don’t have to talk about job cuts.”

Furthermore, as Volkswagen calculated that the scandal will cost the company 8.7 billion euro ($9.2 billion), the brand also plans to reduce investment by 1 billion euros/year, targeting a total of 5 billion in efficiency gains, as Osterloh concluded:

“Savings will be key as customers are balking at buying new VW vehicles because of uncertainty created by the scandal.”