Volkswagen’s supervisory board convened in Wolfsburg on Thursday to examine a restructuring blueprint that would close four German assembly plants and eliminate up to 100,000 positions worldwide, doubling the headcount reduction already under way. The plan, leaked in German media ahead of the meeting, envisages ending vehicle production at Emden and Zwickau by 2031, at the Hanover commercial-vehicle plant by 2032, and at Audi’s Neckarsulm site by 2034. Capital expenditure would be pared by €50 billion over the 2027–2031 planning round, with the group targeting a 9 percent operating margin by 2030.

The push for radical surgery reflects a collision of pressures. US import tariffs are costing the group an estimated €5 billion a year, while its once-lucrative China business has eroded sharply: deliveries there last year fell to their lowest since 2011 as local competitors led by BYD captured market share. At the same time, VW’s German factories are running well below capacity—utilisation is forecast to drop from 81 percent in 2026 to 73 percent by 2030—and the group’s operating profit halved in 2025, with the margin slipping to 2.8 percent. CEO Oliver Blume has told shareholders the legacy business model “no longer works” and that the company must cut overcapacity to survive.

Resistance is already organised. IG Metall, Germany’s most powerful industrial union, called protest actions at all German VW sites, and works council chief Daniela Cavallo vowed to fight the plans “with all our might.” The state of Lower Saxony, which holds a 20 percent stake and a blocking minority under the so-called Volkswagen Law, has declared its opposition to plant closures. The workers’ side currently holds a majority on the 20-seat supervisory board after a shareholder representative resigned in June, making outright approval of management’s proposal unlikely. In parallel, the board is exploring alternatives: converting the Osnabrück plant to defence manufacturing, building Chinese-designed models in Europe, and spinning off the core VW brand and components division into separate legal entities.

No binding vote is expected on Thursday. The session marks the start of what company insiders describe as a lengthy negotiation, with the existing labour agreement ruling out compulsory redundancies and site closures until the end of 2030. The next milestone will be whether management and labour can agree on a framework for voluntary departures and capacity reduction without triggering an all-out confrontation that would test the limits of Germany’s co-determination model.