Volkswagen will pay its employees in Germany a bonus of 3,630 euros

multinational Volkswagen will pay its 100,000 employees in Germany covered by the collective agreement bonus of 3,629.50 euros gross as profit participation in 2022., as the German automobile concern reported on Wednesday. The bonus is higher than the 3,000 euros that the automotive group paid the previous year and 2,700 in 2020, but less than the 4,950 gross euros that each employee received in 2019, before the pandemic.

Personnel Director Gunnar Kilian reported that employees have already received 1,729.50 gross euros on the payroll for November. The remaining 1,900 euros will be paid in May.

The bonus is calculated based on the brand’s business results, which will be announced on March 14. Employees of factories in Wolfsburg, Hannover, Emden, Salzgitter, Braunschweig and Kassel covered by the collective agreement and employees of financial services receive a bonus.

He is considering bringing a battery plant planned for Europe to the US

The Volkswagen Group is evaluating the possibility of bringing to the United States (USA) a battery factory for electric vehicles that was originally planned for installation in Eastern Europe, considering the possibility of obtaining between 9,000 and 10,000 million euros for the development of this project within the framework of the American Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). , awarded with $369,000 million to encourage green industry initiatives, including these types of plants.

According to the newspaper Financial TimesThe German company’s directors have passed this option on to the European Union (EU), although they are waiting to see how the bloc will respond to the IRA Act, which will be published on March 14.

«We are still evaluating suitable locations for our upcoming battery factories in Eastern Europe and North America.. No decisions have been made yet. We are sticking to our plan to build around 240 gigawatt hours (GWh) of battery factories in Europe by 2030, but for that we need competitive framework conditions. That’s why we are waiting to see what the so-called The EU’s ‘Green Deal’, Volkswagen sources told Europa Press.

In any case, the consulted sources exclude any change in the conditions or in the development of the Volkswagen battery gigafactory in Sagunto (Community of Valencia), an investment that the company considers “insured”. Namely, the Volkswagen group will receive 357 million euros from the first line of aid from the strategic project of recovery and economic transformation of electric and connected vehicles (PERTE VEC), and the approved project for subsidies includes the Sagunto gigafactory.

Risk of investment flight

However, the Volkswagen Group’s chief technology officer, Thomas Schmall, wrote a few days ago on Linkedin after a meeting with several European commissioners, including Margrethe Vestager (competition) and Thierry Breton (internal market), that “the terms of the IRA Act are so attractive that Europe risks losing billions of investments this will be decided in the coming months and years.

“Today, the battery business is run by Asian companies. And while the United States is catching up thanks to the Anti-Inflation Act, Europe is falling further behind. The terms of the IRA Law are so attractive that Europe risks losing the race for billions of investments that will be decided in the coming months and years,” he believes.

The Transport & Environment (T&E) organization made a similar statement this week, saying that 68% of projects planned for the production of batteries for electric vehicles in the EU have a “high or medium risk” of being interrupted or lost due to the IRA Act. Likewise, the organization pointed out that in the case of Spain, the percentage rises to 79%. “IRA Act subsidies are the biggest threat to gigafactory plans unless Europe offers affordable incentives and accelerated permitting,” T&E warned.

“Battery production in the EU is in an extremely delicate situation between the US and China. Europe must act or risk losing everything. A green industrial policy focused on batteries, with support across the EU to increase battery production, is urgently needed to respond to US subsidies and years of Chinese dominance,” the organization added.