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Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.<\/span><\/p>\n Volkswagen will stop manufacturing vehicles at its site in Dresden after Tuesday, marking the first time in the carmaker\u2019s 88-year history that it will close production in Germany.<\/p>\n The closure of the plant\u2019s production line comes as Europe\u2019s largest auto manufacturer is under cash flow pressure as a result of weak China sales and demand in Europe as well as US tariffs weighing on sales in America.<\/p>\n Volkswagen has been wrestling with the allocation its investment budget of approximately \u20ac160bn over the coming five years, with a longer lifespan expected for petrol-engine cars. The rolling budget which is updated annually, has been slashed over the recent years. For the period from 2023 to 2027 the equivalent figure was \u20ac180bn. <\/p>\n The automaker\u2019s CFO Arno Antlitz suggested in October that its net cash flow for 2025, which had previously been forecast to be close to zero, could be slightly positive. However, analysts said the carmaker would continue to see further pressure.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s certainly pressure on the cash flow in 2026,\u201d said Bernstein analyst Stephen Reitman. He noted that the auto group was looking for ways to reduce spending and boost operating profits. <\/p>\n Volkswagen was facing \u201cwidespread\u201d challenges, with the expected longer lifetime for fossil fuel-burning engines requiring new investment, Reitman said. \u201cYou have to look at new generations of gasoline technologies,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n Moritz Kronenberger, Union Investment portfolio manager, said some projects would need to be axed from Volkswagen\u2019s spending plans. For Volkswagen to meet its investment target, \u201cother ideas and projects must be removed from the plan,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Dresden has produced fewer than 200,000 vehicles since production started in 2002, or less than half the annual output of VW\u2019s central factory in Wolfsburg.<\/p>\n The move brings Volkswagen a small step forward in its plans to reduce capacity in Germany. The changes are part of a deal agreed with unions last year that will also lead to 35,000 job cuts at the VW brand in Germany. <\/p>\n VW brand chief Thomas Sch\u00e4fer said this month the decision to close production had not been taken \u201clightly\u201d, but that \u201cfrom an economic perspective it was essential\u201d.<\/p>\n The plant was intended as a showcase for Volkswagen\u2019s engineering prowess and was first tasked with the assembly of the high-end VW Phaeton. After the Phaeton was discontinued in 2016, the Dresden site became a symbol of Volkswagen\u2019s electrification efforts, most recently producing the battery-powered ID.3.<\/p>\n The site will be rented out to the Technical University of Dresden to establish a research campus for the development of artificial intelligence, robotics and chips<\/p>\n Volkswagen together with the university, have pledged to invest \u20ac50mn over the next seven years into the project, while the auto giant has said it will continue to use the facility to deliver cars to customers and as a tourist attraction. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Volkswagen will stop manufacturing vehicles at its site in Dresden after Tuesday, marking the first time in the carmaker\u2019s 88-year history that it will close production in Germany. The closure of the plant\u2019s production line<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37343,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[20666,986,20665,2794,145,6184],"class_list":{"0":"post-37342","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-88year","9":"tag-closure","10":"tag-gears","11":"tag-germany","12":"tag-history","13":"tag-production"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37342\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/37343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}