The researchers compared VW’s plans for the manufacturing of conventional vehicles and electric cars, choosing VW’s Golf and the company’s all-electric model ID.3 as representative examples. “The job losses from the introduction of electric mobility are likely to be substantially lower in the area of vehicle manufacturing than global studies have predicted,” the report says. The researchers expect employment in this area to fall by 12 percent in this decade, but mainly due to planned output volumes and higher productivity. “With respect to component manufacture, however, labour requirements are 70 percent higher for the production of a conventional powertrain than for the production of a powertrain for an electric vehicle,” the study says. Within VW, this “can be cushioned by boosting output volumes and by shifting to the production of new components (for example battery cells).” But many suppliers specialised in making components for conventional cars have few options to shift production.
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