VW's Zwickau plant will build Tesla fighter; Wolfsburg to produce electric Golf

Volkswagen will build its prestige Trinity EV at its factory in Zwickau, Germany, and a battery-electric Golf at its main plant in Wolfsburg.

The Trinity battery-electric car is a flagship project for the VW brand to fight Tesla's dominance in electric cars. It will use the group's new SSP software-led platform, which VW says will enable Level 4 autonomy, meaning the car will be able to drive itself.

VW had initially planned to build a 2-billion-euro ($2.1 billion) factory for the model near its Wolfsburg headquarters. VW said on Friday there was no need for a new plant after it had shuffled its future production allocations.

Wolfsburg will build an electric version of the Golf hatchback based on the SSP architecture, VW said in a statement. VW Group's performance brand Cupra will get a version.

VW said models based on the SSP platform will launch at the end of the decade.

Wolfsburg will also produce an electric Tiguan starting in 2026 and a successor to the Tiguan Allspace in 2025. 

VW's Osnabrück factory will get production of an electric version of the Porsche 718 model line. The plant currently builds ICE versions of the Porsche Cayman and Boxster.

The Trinity EV was supposed to be launched in 2026 but shortly after taking office VW Group CEO Oliver Blume pushed the project back to relieve pressure on the struggling software subsidiary Cariad.

VW spent millions to convert the Zwickau plant, which once built Trabant cars, into EV hub for electric cars based on its MEB platform. The plant produces the VW ID3, ID4 and ID5 models alongside the Cupra Born, Audi Q4 E-tron and Audi Q4 Sportback E-tron.

As EV sales in Europe slow down because of higher energy costs and lower government incentives, VW is reducing production at the plant and cutting jobs.

VW Group's 20-member supervisory board on Friday approved the management's vehicle allocation plans for the VW brand through 2028.

The decision to assign electric Golf production to Wolfsburg comes as the brand pushes through savings measures demanded by Blume. High demand anticipated for the Golf EV bolsters the argument to keep staffing levels high as a union-secured job security package runs out in 2029.

VW is widening its strategy of building vehicles from different brands together that are based on the same architecture.

"We want our plants to produce several different models on the technical basis of one vehicle architecture," VW brand's production boss, Christian Vollmer, said in a statement. "By doing so, we will save significant investments in the integration of different vehicle architectures."

Reuters and Bloomberg contributed to this report