The Volkswagen Zwickau-Mosel Plant (German: Volkswagenwerk Zwickau) is an automobile factory in today's Zwickau district of Mosel, Germany. Founded on 26 September 1990, together with the Chemnitz plant and the Transparent Factory, it belongs to Volkswagen Sachsen, based in Zwickau. Currently (as of spring 2019), the Zwickau plant has about 8,000 employees. [1] Signalling a milestone the last combustion vehicle was produced on 26 June 2020. [2]
With the founding of Horch and Audi in 1904 and 1909 respectively, Zwickau became the cradle of the Saxon automobile industry. [3] Following the partition of Germany after the Second World War, and the formation of East Germany (DDR), all private enterprise was seized by the government, which included the former Audi and Horch factories in Zwickau, with their parent Auto Union formally relocating to Ingolstadt in West Germany in 1949, from where the modern Audi company evolved.
VEB Sachsenring was established by the DDR in the 1950s to manufacture a national automobile - the Trabant - out of the former Auto Union works. Between 1978 and 1982, VEB Saschenring constructed a new factory on the outskirts of Zwickau in nearby Mosel, as the old facilities had increasingly become inadequate.
Due to the traditions of automotive engineering in the region and because of the skilled workers potential, Volkswagen decided as the first large enterprise of the Federal Republic to build up a completely new plant in Saxony and provided for it considerable investments. As a result, other investors settled in the region.
Already in the final phase of the GDR the Trabant 1.1 was built in the newer Mosel plant from 1989 with a four-cylinder four-stroke engine manufactured under VW license. The production was discontinued in 1991, because parallel to this one the mass production of the Volkswagen Polo Mk2 had already started on 21 May 1990 in the Mosel factory. On 15 February 1991, the production of the Volkswagen Golf Mk2 began parallel to the Polo production. Volkswagen also began construction of a major expansion of the Mosel plant following the unification of Germany, with he old Saschenring site in the centre of Zwickau being largely demolished - only the historic Audi factory building was retained and now houses the August Horch Museum Zwickau. The new expanded manufacturing plant was completed in 1993.
The suburb Mosel was incorporated into Zwickau on 1 January 1999. In 2007, they officially introduced the new factory designation Volkswagen-Fahrzeugwerk Zwickau.
Since production began in 1990, around 6 million Volkswagen vehicles have been delivered. [2] In 2010, 1,350 vehicles of the VW model series Golf and Passat left the production lines of the Volkswagen plant every day. With 250,000 vehicles, 2010 was a record result. In addition, there are the bodies for the luxury class vehicles Phaeton and Bentley Continental GT, which are completely painted with special transporters in the "Transparent Factory" Dresden or after Crewe in England. Since 2001, around 100,000 bodies have been produced for the Phaeton and Bentley Continental series (50,000 each). Since 2017, bodies for the Bentley Bentayga and since 2018 bodies for the Lamborghini Urus have been produced at the Zwickau plant. [4]
On 11 May 2004 the festive event for the 100th anniversary of the founding of Horch. High-ranking persons from politics and economics appreciated the scientific and technical achievements of the car makers from southwest Saxony in their greetings.
Directly adjacent is also a factory of the supplier GKN Driveline, which operates out of the old VEB Saschenring part of the plant that was constructed in the late 1970 to manufacture Trabants.
In 2019 the factory was completely converted to the production of electric cars. [5] The last internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle rolled off the Zwickau plant on 26 June 2020. The car is a seventh generation Golf R Estate with 2.0-litre petrol engine in Oryx White Pearl Effect. It is the 9,512,001th ICE vehicle produced in the plant, effectively ended 116 years of ICE vehicle assembly in Zwickau-Mosel. [6]
Production of the Audi Q4 e-tron began at the plant in 2021, marking the first time that Audis have been manufactured in Zwickau in the post-war period.
Audi AG is a German automotive manufacturer of luxury vehicles headquartered in Ingolstadt, Bavaria, Germany. A subsidiary of the Volkswagen Group, Audi produces vehicles in nine production facilities worldwide.
August Horch was a German engineer and automobile pioneer, the founder of the manufacturing giant that eventually became Audi.
Trabant is a series of small cars produced from 1957 until 1991 by former East German car manufacturer VEB Sachsenring Automobilwerke Zwickau. Four models were made: the Trabant 500, Trabant 600, Trabant 601, and the Trabant 1.1. The first model, the 500, was a relatively modern car when it was introduced.
Volkswagen is a German automobile manufacturer headquartered in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, Germany. Founded in 1937 by the German Labour Front under the Nazi Party and revived into the global brand it is known as today post-World War II by the British Army officer Ivan Hirst, it is known for the iconic Beetle and serves as the flagship brand of the Volkswagen Group, the largest automotive manufacturer by worldwide sales in 2016 and 2017. The group's biggest market is China, which delivers 40 percent of its sales and profits. Its name is derived from the German-language terms Volk and Wagen, translating to "people's car" when combined.
Volkswagen AG, known internationally as the Volkswagen Group, is a German public multinational conglomerate manufacturer of passenger and commercial vehicles, motorcycles, engines and turbomachinery. Headquartered in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, Germany, and since the late 2000s is a publicly-traded family business owned by Porsche SE, which in turn is half-owned but fully controlled by the Austrian-German Porsche and Piëch family. The company also offers related services, including financing, leasing, and fleet management. In 2016, it was the world's largest automaker by sales, and keeping this title in 2017, 2018, and 2019, selling 10.9 million vehicles and was the largest automaker by revenue in 2022. It has maintained the largest market share in Europe for over two decades. It ranked seventh in the 2020 Fortune Global 500 list of the world's largest companies. In 2023, Volkswagen Group ranked 29th in the Forbes Global 2000.
Zwickau is, with around 87,500 inhabitants (2020), the fourth-largest city of Saxony, Germany, after Leipzig, Dresden and Chemnitz and it is the seat of the Zwickau District. The West Saxon city is situated in the valley of the Zwickau Mulde, and lies in a string of cities sitting in the densely populated foreland of the Elster and Ore Mountains stretching from Plauen in the southwest via Zwickau, Chemnitz and Freiberg to Dresden in the northeast. From 1834 until 1952, Zwickau was the seat of the government of the south-western region of Saxony.
The Volkswagen Phaeton is a full-size sedan/saloon manufactured by the German automobile manufacturer Volkswagen, described by Volkswagen as their "premium class" vehicle. Introduced at the 2002 Geneva Motor Show, the Phaeton was marketed worldwide. Sales in North America ended in 2006 and global sales ended in 2016.
Auto Union AG was an amalgamation of four German automobile manufacturers, founded in 1932 and established in 1936 in Chemnitz, Saxony. It is the immediate predecessor of Audi as it is known today.
Wanderer was a German manufacturer of bicycles, motorcycles, automobiles, vans and other machinery. Established as Winklhofer & Jaenicke in 1896 by Johann Baptist Winklhofer and Richard Adolf Jaenicke, the company used the Wanderer brand name from 1911, making civilian automobiles until 1941 and military vehicles until 1945.
The Transparent Factory is a car factory and exhibition space in Dresden, Germany owned by German carmaker Volkswagen and designed by architect Gunter Henn. It originally opened in 2002, producing the Volkswagen Phaeton until 2016. As of 2017 it produces the electric version of the Golf.
Horch was a German car manufacturer, which traced its roots to several companies founded in the very late 19th and early 20th century by August Horch.
HQM Sachsenring GmbH is a Zwickau-based company that supplies chassis and body parts to the automotive industry. The company was named after the Sachsenring race track. Founded as VEB Sachsenring after the end of World War II, and operating out of the former Auto Union factory in Zwickau, Sachsenring was one of the few manufacturers of vehicles in East Germany, its best known product being the Trabant, produced between 1957 and 1991. Following the reunification of Germany in 1990, Sachsenring transitioned from a government-owned company under a centrally-planned economy to a private corporation in a free market economy.
Volkswagen Group of America, Inc., is the North American operational headquarters, and subsidiary of the Volkswagen Group of automobile companies of Germany. VWoA is responsible for five marques: Audi, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, and Volkswagen cars. It also controls VW Credit, Inc., Volkswagen's financial services and credit operations. The company is headquartered in Reston, Virginia.
FAW-Volkswagen Automobile Co., Ltd. is a joint venture between FAW Group and Volkswagen Group which manufactures Audi and Volkswagen marque passenger cars for sale in China. It was founded on 6 February 1991.
The automotive industry in Germany is one of the largest employers in the world, with a labor force of over 857,336 (2016) working in the industry.
Škoda Auto Volkswagen India Private Limited is the wholly owned Indian subsidiary of German automotive manufacturing company Volkswagen Group, formed in 2001.
The August Horch Museum Zwickau is an automobile museum in Zwickau, Saxony, Germany. Opened in 2004, it covers the history of automobile construction in Zwickau, the early history of Horch and Audi; their eventual incorporation into Auto Union in 1932, and ending with the company's relocation to Ingolstadt after World War II - from where the modern-day Audi company evolved.
AutoMuseum Volkswagen is an automobile museum in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, Germany. Opened in April 1985, it is one of two museums in Wolfsburg devoted to the history of the Volkswagen brand; the other is at nearby Autostadt.
The Volkswagen Group MEB platform is a modular car platform for electric cars developed by the Volkswagen Group and its subsidiaries. It is used in models of Audi, Cupra, Škoda, and Volkswagen, along with Ford through partnership. The architecture is aimed to "consolidate electronic controls and reduce the number of microprocessors, advance the application of new driver-assistance technology and somewhat alter the way cars are built" by the VW Group.
The Audi Q4 e-tron is a battery electric compact luxury crossover SUV produced by Audi. It is based on Volkswagen Group's electric MEB platform and is the fourth fully-electric model in the Audi e-tron series after the Audi Q8 e-tron, e-tron GT and Q2L e-tron. Production began in March 2021, with the production version being unveiled in April 2021.
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