What happened to the Volkswagen plant in Bratislava
After two days of closure due to supply problems, the Volkswagen plant in Bratislava has resumed production. In addition to the war in Ukraine, the microchip crisis weighs heavily. All the details (and Stellantis' reassurances)
The German carmaker Volkswagen today resumed production at its plant in Bratislava, Slovakia, after having had to stop operations for two days due to supply difficulties: the war in Ukraine has in fact complicated the distribution of some essential components for the automobiles, joining the earlier microchip supply crisis.
RETURN TO NORMALITY
A Volkswagen spokesperson told Automotive News Europe that the lack of auto parts impacted the entire production cycle at the Bratislava plant, forcing it to close on Monday 21 and Tuesday 22 March. Operations resumed normally on the morning of Wednesday 23.
WHAT VOLKSWAGEN DOES IN SLOVAKIA
The one in Bratislava is Volkswagen's largest production site in Slovakia, where the group has about 12 thousand employees and where it produces various models of various brands: the Volkswagen Touareg, the Volkswagen up !, the Porsche Cayenne, the Audi Q7 and Q8, the Seat Mii and the Skoda Citigo.
THE PROBLEMS IN DRESDEN
Automotive News Europe writes that Volkswagen has recovered rather quickly from auto parts shortages caused by the war in Ukraine: the plant in Wolfsburg, Germany, for example, was reopened earlier than expected. However, it will take longer for the German factories in Zwickau and Dresden that produce electric vehicles (they need more semiconductors).
WHAT STELLANTIS SAID
The Slovak Spectator reports that the Slovakian division of Stellantis, based in Trnava, has communicated that the Russian invasion of Ukraine did not have a direct impact on the output of its plant. The production of heat engines installed in Kaluga, Russia had already been moved to France following the sanctions against Moscow.
Peter Švec, a spokesman for Stellantis in Slovakia, said the company is monitoring semiconductor shipments from Asia and reshaping production based on supplies and anti-contagion restrictions.
THE IMPACT OF THE WAR ON THE AUTOMOTIVE
The invasion of Ukraine has forced some of the major European car companies to close their plants due to a shortage of wiring , of which Ukraine is a major producer and exporter: it is worth a fifth of the total supplies of these components to Europe.
The war disrupted the production of wiring harnesses in Ukrainian factories, but also complicated the shipments of finished products to destination markets: both due to the fighting itself and the lack of truck drivers, recruited in the armed resistance to the Russian army. .
Moving wire harness production from Ukraine to other parts of Europe will be both costly and logistically complex.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/smartcity/volkswagen-bratislava-slovacchia/ on Wed, 23 Mar 2022 14:34:07 +0000.