Volkswagen shares rose 8% on Friday after the group's supervisory board approved its Future Plan 2030, a restructuring program that includes cutting approximately 50,000 further positions — nearly doubling the 50,000 job reductions already sanctioned. The plan, described as the most strategically profound transformation in the company's 89-year history, also calls for streamlining leadership into a flatter hierarchy and simplifying the model portfolio by 50% by 2035.
Four German plants face uncertain futures, with future production yet to be secured for some from 2031 to 2034, and the company is considering alternative uses for those sites.
"We are taking responsibility for our entire workforce, for our partners and for industrial jobs worldwide," CEO Oliver Blume said. "Over the coming years, we will invest a three-figure billion sum to make our iconic brands even more attractive, stronger and more competitive."
Volkswagen has been hit hard by tariff pressures and intensifying competition from Chinese manufacturers. Tariff expenses totaled €2.9 billion ($3.4 billion) for full-year 2025. The company's European export tariffs rose from 2.5% to 15% over two years, Blume said in August. "Our cars are becoming more expensive and therefore increasingly difficult to sell — not because they have got worse, but because the rules of the game have changed."
Domestic rivals BYD and Geely have gained ground in electric vehicles, while Kevin Thozet of Carmignac's Investment Committee noted that "Europe is importing not only Chinese cars, but Chinese price deflation." Thozet added that Europe carries its own overcapacity problem, with Volkswagen particularly exposed because some German plants were built around first-generation electric sedans whose demand has weakened. "China has too many cars. Europe has too many factories. And both problems are colliding."
Deutsche Bank analysts called the unanimous approval of Zukunftsplan 2030 a "fundamental breakthrough and a much better-than-feared outcome," noting that investor skepticism had run extremely high. The bank said the decision could create a "halo effect" for the broader German auto industry, citing the December 2024 restructuring agreement as already encouraging rivals to pursue similar adjustments. Volkswagen's stock is down 21% year-to-date and topped the Stoxx 600 on Friday.
