It is a long-standing issue, but it gradually emerges: Between the middle of 2024 and 2025 they will work in two and a half shifts at the Volkswagen plant in Pamplona, according to the management report on Wednesday to the staff commission.

The meeting explains that next March will no longer make the Polo car after four decades of local star product. The Taigo brand which is now being manufactured will not be made from 2026, and only the T-Cross brand will be maintained in combustion engines.

In 2024 the management announced 255,000 cars, 215,000 in 2025 and about 200,000 in 2026. Two electric cars will be produced in Landaben in the last year: Skoda and ID2X electric SUV from Volkswagen.

These situations would be provisional according to the Directorate, which plans to produce 350,000 cars a year by 2027 and 2028, and then expect to return to the current number of jobs.

Decline in production

In view of the sales trend of recent years, it may be thought that it is very difficult for these figures to be true. To mention two dates of the last decade, in 2016 there were 296,000 cars in the polygon of Landaben in Pamplona and 288,000 in 2022. In fact, 40 years of record sales is 2011 with 353,353 authors.

With this data, it is therefore difficult to think that in later years this productive capacity and the level of employment announced can be restored. On the one hand, the automotive sector has assumed that it will produce far fewer electric cars. On the other hand, the manufacture of the electric car requires less personnel than the manufacture of combustion engines; the battery is the most important part of the electric car and is already announced that it will not be carried out in Landaben.

Finally, to mention another important factor, the Chinese electric car has entered European markets with a quality as good as the European one, which sells between EUR 8,000 and EUR 10,000 less.