VW: Trinity to come to Wolfsburg 

This was confirmed by the Wolfsburg-based company on Friday afternoon. For this purpose, the VW Group will invest around two billion euros in the construction of the new production site for the Trinity e-model in the immediate vicinity of the Wolfsburg main plant. Construction is to begin in spring 2023.

The company says that within three years the Trinity model is to be produced in a CO2-neutral manner. The new, process-optimised factory unit will thus become a model for the gradual conversion of production at the Wolfsburg main plant and all other Volkswagen plants. Trinity is regarded as the lodestar of Volkswagen's all-electric vehicle fleet and the crystallisation point of the ACCELERATE brand strategy. The electric vehicle will have a significantly reduced charging time and a range of more than 700 kilometres. It will also have the basis for autonomous driving, Level 4. Over the entire life cycle, more than 40 million vehicles are planned for the new platform across the Group. Trinity brings it into the volume segment for the first time.

"The decision of the Supervisory Board is an important milestone for the transformation and future of the Wolfsburg production site. We are thus sustainably strengthening the competitiveness of the main plant and giving the workforce a strong long-term perspective. With Trinity and the new plant, we will set standards in the automotive industry and develop Wolfsburg into a beacon for state-of-the-art and efficient vehicle production. This shows: economic transformation is possible in Germany as an industrial location." - Ralf Brandstätter, CEO of Volkswagen

The decision was also very positively received by the employees. Chairperson of the General and Group Works Council Daniela Cavallo is positive: "The Trinity factory will become a blueprint for the previous part of the main plant and for VW as a whole. It has also been agreed that we will expand the battery, charging and digitalisation fields around Trinity here in Wolfsburg. All of this will secure employment and shape transformation in Wolfsburg from a single source." The Group also explains that the decision was made in favour of Wolfsburg because the new Sandkamp Campus is also being built there, where, for example, the future Group-wide highly scalable vehicle platform SSP is being developed, which will be used for the first time in the volume segment with Trinity. 800 million euros are being invested in this campus alone, in order to develop it into the most modern research and development centre in Europe.

For the production of the Trinity, which is to start in Wolfsburg in 2026, new standards are to be set. The finished e-car is to roll off the production line in just ten hours. This will be made possible by fewer variants, fewer components, more automation, leaner production lines and new logistics concepts. By 2030, it is planned to integrate the modern e-manufacturing on the SSP platform, modelled on the Trinity factory, into the existing main plant as well.

The construction of a new plant in Warmenau is not only more cost-effective in the medium term, but also ensures that ongoing series production and the upcoming start-ups of important models such as the Tiguan, Tayron and the Golf product upgrade will not be disrupted. The Supervisory Board of Volkswagen AG had already confirmed the production of the Trinity e-model at the Wolfsburg plant in December as part of the Planning Round 70. However, the transformation of the main plant into a production facility for e-vehicles will begin much earlier: from 2023 Volkswagen will also manufacture the ID.3 here to meet the high demand for the brand's e-models.