German VW plant may not have a model to produce from 2026

A Volkswagen spokesperson has now confirmed to German media that Porsche has not awarded the contract for production after 2026 to Osnabrück. Three models from the VW Group are currently built there. The VW T-Roc Cabrio is expected to be discontinued in spring 2026 without a successor. The regular T-Roc is built in Portugal, and the former Karmann plant in Osnabrück is really only home to the production of the convertible offshoot.

The plant’s largest in-house customer is currently Porsche: the two-seater 718 Boxster and 718 Cayman have been built there in overflow production since 2022 – the vehicles that Porsche cannot build itself at the main plant in Zuffenhausen due to limited capacity and high demand come from Osnabrück.

According to the reports, the plan was apparently to continue with precisely this concept when the successors of the two Porsche models come onto the market – these will then, as reported, be purely electric. However, as Porsche now assumes that its own capacities in Zuffenhausen will be sufficient for the electric sports cars given the somewhat subdued demand for electric cars, there is no need for overflow production in Osnabrück. It would have been questionable how economical a pure overflow production without a ‘fixed’ model in Osnabrück would have been anyway.

At present, it is only confirmed that Porsche has not placed a follow-up order with the Osnabrück plant. This step is not yet the automatic end for the plant. The VW spokesperson told the German press agency DPA that a decision would be made in the autumn as part of the usual planning round:. “The allocation of the Osnabrück plant is – as every year and for all plants in the Group – part of the planning round at the end of the year.”

Osnabrück is the second-smallest VW plant in Germany after the Gläserne Manufaktur in Dresden and currently employs around 2,300 people. Following the insolvency of the supplier Kamann, which had mainly manufactured convertible models for VW, the German carmaker took over the plant itself.

The IG Metall trade union expressed its “surprise” regarding the latest information – not only about the non-awarding of the contract itself but also about how it was communicated. Head of the works council Jürgen Placke told NDR there had already been “speculation that the deal would not materialise,” but the announcement before the planning round was unusual. The mood at the plant was “extremely bad.”

Due to high costs and poor capacity utilisation, the VW Board of Management announced at the beginning of September that it could no longer rule out plant closures in Germany. However, the names of potential plants on the brink of closure were not mentioned. Since then, there has been speculation about candidates. Due to their cost structure, Osnabrück and the Gläserne Manufaktur have been mentioned repeatedly. However, these are also the two smallest locations with potentially the lowest savings in the event of closure.

spiegel.de (in German)