VW’s profits fell 64% in the third quarter of 2024, driving the company’s share price to its lowest level since October 2010. Now, the world’s largest automaker by sales is looking to lower its expenses, with VW’s top labor leader announcing earlier this week that the company was aiming to shut at least three of its German factories, slash wages 10% and lay off thousands of employees.

“We’ve not forgotten how to build great cars, but the costs, specifically in our German operations and factories, are far from being competitive,” Chief Financial Officer Arno Antlitz told The Wall Street Journal Wednesday. “Things cannot continue as they are now.”

VW crisis is getting worse…

Volkswagen’s Q3 profit dropped a steep 64%, largely due to big losses in China. Their net profit fell from €4.34 billion last year to €1.57 billion, and revenue dipped to €78.5 billion. The group’s operating profit margin also shrank, while the… pic.twitter.com/CtumLnjXHW

— Bullion Bite (@bullionbite) October 30, 2024

VW’s profitability challenges come as consumer demand for EVs has weakened in recent years, with EV sales growing 50% in the first half of 2023 and 31% in the first half of 2024, far less than the 71% increase in the first half of 2022. As a result of this decline, the company walked back plans to sell shares in its EV business in January.

The automaker’s disappointing earnings also result from increased Chinese competition in the EV market, the WSJ reported. Deliveries in the Asian superpower fell 15% in the third quarter of 2024, largely due to lower-cost Chinese options such as BYD’s 2025 Seal EV.

VW’s cost-cutting plan would mark the first time the company has shuttered one of its German factories in its 87-year history, and has brought significant backlash from worker groups. Daniela Cavallo, head of VW’s works council, said tensions could “soon escalate” into a strike during a speech in Wolfsburg, Germany — the site of a VW factory that the company’s website describes as the “heart” of the brand.

“I’m confident that we’ll reach an agreement … but of course, I cannot rule out strikes,” Antlitz told the WSJ.

VW did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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(DCNF)—Resale values for electric vehicles (EVs) have cratered as a slackening of consumer demand has weighed down prices.

Automakers have offered a flood of price cuts on new models in a bid to prop up sales amid lower-than-expected demand, according to The Wall Street Journal. The discounts have caused EV resale values to plummet, with the average selling price of a three-year-old EV falling to $28,400, a 25% decrease from the start of 2023 and a lower price than that of a internal combustion vehicle of the same age.

As a result, as of August EV owners owed roughly $10,000 more on their car loans than their vehicle was worth, up from $8,000 at the beginning of 2023, the WSJ reported.

“They kept reducing the price of the cars, which killed the used-EV market,” Christian Lange, a former 2018 Tesla Model 3 owner, told the WSJ. Lange saw his vehicle’s value decline by $10,000 relative to what he owed on his loan following the 2023 price cuts.

Buying business, causing massive depreciation, a race to the bottom, and ruining the motor trade as they do it!

But yeah, EV's are selling just fine! and if you think that you are a fucking idiot

"Average discounts on EV's are now almost double what they are on ICE vehicles"… pic.twitter.com/rLvax7d4WM

— Barrie Crampton (@BarrieCrampton) October 10, 2024

The price cuts followed lower-than-expected demand in 2023 and 2024, with EV sales growing 50% in the first half of 2023 and 31% in the first half of 2024, less than the 71% increase in the first half of 2022. Meanwhile, a June poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the University of Chicago’s Energy Policy Institute found 46% of respondents were unlikely or very unlikely to purchase an EV, while just 21% were “very” or “extremely” likely to make the change.

The faltering demand comes despite billions in subsidies from the Biden-Harris administration, including a $7,500 federal tax credit for certain EVs to ease costs for buyers. Experts previously told the DCNF the faltering demand was due to consumer aversion to lower mileage ranges, a lack of charging infrastructure and higher vehicle prices.

“Even after throwing money at EVs hand over fist, basically paying people tax dollars to drive these cars off the lots, you have a dire spiral of (1) not enough demand to support the number of cars being produced, and (2) the people you paid to buy them now wanting to go back to what they had before,” O.H. Skinner, executive director of the Alliance for Consumers and the former solicitor general of Arizona, previously told the DCNF.

A $4,000 credit for used EVs under $25,000, implemented as part of President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, has also contributed to the plummet in resale values by incentivizing dealers to lower prices below the $25,000 maximum, according to the WSJ.

Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Suppliers suspected of having ties to China’s military-industrial complex pose a key risk due to the potential for built-in wireless components in EVs to be “weaponized,” which could even be used to gridlock British streets, according to the report by the China Strategic Risks Institute (CSRI) and the Coalition on Secure Technology.

The so-called Cellular IoT Modules (CIMs) are wireless components embedded in all-electric vehicles and act as a gateway for data to flow in either direction. (Related: Can China remotely control and detonate electric vehicles?)

The report said it was concerned that data generated by Chinese-manufactured EVs operated in the U.K. could end up in the hands of the Chinese state and could be used for surveillance purposes.

This adds to concerns that the British government’s open-door policy to EVs from China threatens to undercut domestic manufacturing. The U.K.’s domestic car industry is responsible for 198,000 manufacturing jobs, representing 2.5 percent of the country’s entire GDP.

CSRI warned that China’s heavy involvement and subsidization of its EV manufacturing sector, allowing the country to produce an excess of five to 10 million EVs per year, along with the British government’s failure to impose restrictions on Chinese EV imports raises the possibility of China posing a threat to British national security and to the country’s car manufacturing industry.

The study comes amid a rapid influx of Chinese automakers into the U.K. market, with the CSRI claiming that Chinese-made EVs have increased their U.K. market share from just two percent in 2019 to 33.4 percent in the first half of 2023.

British government rapidly procuring EVs for the public sector

The U.K. government is rapidly procuring EVs for the public sector. It confirmed last year that some EV units used by the Ministry of Defense had been supplied by MG, a motoring brand owned by Chinese state-owned automobile manufacturing giant SAIC Motor.

Chinese EV giant BYD has also made significant inroads in the British public sector, with at least 1,800 electric buses delivered to local authorities across the country in the past few years.

CSRI warned that London’s refusal to impose restrictions on Chinese EVs, unlike its neighbors in the European Union, could result in Britain becoming a “dumping ground and a potential backdoor into the European market” for Beijing.

The report further warned that Chinese-made CIMs used in EVs could be used to send data back the Beijing about British users. The paper noted that the totalitarian government mandates that all firms within the country provide data access to the state, which was one of the motivating factors for the U.K.’s previous decision to phase out components manufactured by Chinese tech giant Huawei from its 5G networks by 2027.

The CSRI suggested that the U.K. mandate foreign suppliers of EVs to agree to not transmit data overseas under any circumstances, introduce a legal requirement to share their source code with the British government, and allow for regular inspections of data storage centers globally to ensure that sensitive data is not being sent covertly to other servers.

Watch this video warning that new cars, including EVs, could be remote-controlled by governments.

This video is from PureTrauma357 on Brighteon.com.

More related stories:

• Chinese EV hatchback threatening to disrupt U.S. auto sales with very low price and claims of efficiency.
• China continues to rely on coal while pushing expensive renewable energy and EVs on America.
• Low-cost, China-made Volvo EV to be sold in the U.S., threatening Tesla and other EV makers.
• Experts: Biden’s push for China-made EVs poses NATIONAL SECURITY risk.
• STUPID: In order to meet demand for “clean” electric vehicles, China will be forced to burn more COAL.