VW's own board calls the company existentially threatened

Volkswagen's board has privately admitted the company faces an existential threat, according to an anonymous survey by Manager Magazin (Spiegel Group). Six of nine directors surveyed called the situation "fatal." The remaining three called it "tense." Not one director described the situation as non-critical. For a company that has sold cars under the same German flag for 87 years, that is a remarkable thing to put on record — even anonymously.

The board's verdict

The survey results are striking for their unanimity. All nine directors backed radical strategic change, including major pivots in China and North America — the two markets where VW has fallen furthest behind. The company is no longer talking about software delays or EV pricing adjustments. The conversation has shifted to survival.

VW's cost problems are well documented. Running a factory in Germany costs between 25 and 50 percent more than at competitor plants, per Euronews (2024). The company is cutting global production capacity from 12 million to 9 million vehicles per year and eliminating 35,000 jobs by 2030. Dresden's Gläserne Manufaktur — the glass-walled prestige factory where VW once hand-built the Phaeton luxury sedan — halted vehicle production at the end of 2025. A second plant in Osnabrück is scheduled to close by mid-2027. Both closures are the first on German soil in the company's history.

Dresden and the BYD question

The fate of the Dresden plant adds an uncomfortable layer to the story. Chinese automaker BYD is reportedly in talks to use part of the site, according to CarNewsChina. VW has publicly denied this. But CEO Oliver Blume, speaking on April 30, called Chinese co-production a "clever solution" for idle capacity — language that sits uneasily alongside the official denial. Electrive.com notes the ambiguity: a TU Dresden innovation partnership is already in place, but what happens to the remaining production halls is unresolved.

What this means outside Germany

For US and UK consumers, VW's crisis plays out mostly in the showroom. BYD and other Chinese brands are aggressively pricing EVs at levels VW cannot match with its current cost base. If VW's restructuring stalls or deepens, model availability and pricing across its broader group — Audi, Porsche, Skoda — could be affected. The company that once defined affordable European motoring is now fighting to stay relevant in the segment it created.