Volkswagen will change its business model due to pressure from Chinese auto brands

The concern’s chief financial officer and operating director, Arno Antlitz, stated the need for a “fundamental transformation” of the business model, IT Home reports.

According to the top manager, the company must achieve structural and sustainable improvement in the situation. The key steps he named were: optimizing the cost of cars without losing consumer qualities, significantly reducing administrative costs, increasing the efficiency of factories, accelerating the development of new technologies and speed of decision-making.

At the same time, Antlitz is not the first executive to warn about the crisis of the familiar VW model. Back in July 2025, the then head of Porsche (current CEO of the entire group) Oliver Blume told employees: “The model that worked perfectly for decades is no longer applicable in the current conditions.”

The concern has already begun large-scale restructuring. In a letter to shareholders, Blume said that about 50,000 jobs would be eliminated in Germany over the next four years.

In addition, Volkswagen intends to reduce global annual production to 9 million vehicles to avoid overproduction. For comparison: before the pandemic, the company produced more than 10 million cars a year, and in 2018 – over 11 million. Last year, production volume had already fallen to 8.9 million.

In the coming months, Volkswagen also intends to reduce the “complexity of its model range and technology platforms.” This means that some models and modifications will be reduced, and the number of unified platforms will decrease.

The growth of Chinese competitors and the general cooling of markets have already been reflected in the quarterly reports. In the first three months of 2026, sales decreased for all mass brands of the concern, except Škoda. Read also:

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