Volkswagen ID.4 and ID.7 EVs are now impacted by another production halt in Germany
For the second time this week, Volkswagen is halting production of some of its most popular electric cars. VW extended its production pause to a second plant in Germany, impacting the ID.4 and ID.7.
Production lines at Volkswagen’s recently upgraded Emden plant in Germany were at a standstill Thursday.
The news comes amid a lack of electric motors for the ID.4 and ID.7 models, a spokesperson told German press agency dpa.
Volkswagen plans to extend the production stop into Friday and Monday. Emden is Europe’s third-largest auto distribution hub, producing models such as the Passat, Alltrack, Atreon, and GTE.
The automaker announced last year that it will invest around $1.1 billion (1 billion euros) to advance EV production at the site.
Volkswagen’s ID.4 was the first electric vehicle to roll off the assembly line at Emden last May. Following its Zwickau site, it marked the second plant in Germany to begin building EVs.
Production of the flagship ID.7 began at Emden in August as the second EV to be built at the site.
Despite the massive investments, slowing demand caused Volkswagen to reduce EV output at the plant this summer.
Volkswagen production cut over e-motors or demand?
VW has cut EV production at several German plants over the past few months. Higher inflation and interest rates, fewer subsidies, and more competition have slowed orders.
Earlier this week, Volkswagen said it was halting production at its Zwickau factory for around three weeks. A spokesperson said, “The production of e-drives at the Volkswagen Group Components site in Kassel is currently only possible to a limited extent.”
According to the source, the stoppage will impact the VW ID.4, ID.5, and Audi Q4 e-tron. The ID.3 and Cupra Born will not be affected.
VW already planned to shut down a production line at the plant over the holidays, citing low demand.
Due to waning orders, the automaker cut around 300 employees from its Dresden plant toward the end of October. The site also halted ID.3 production earlier this year.
Electrek’s Take
They say there are two sides to every story. Is Volkswagen pausing production due to a lack of electric motors? Or is demand slipping?
Volkswagen’s CFO, Arno Antilitz, said orders for electric cars were down to 150,000 in the third quarter. That’s 50% lower than last year’s 300,000 orders.
Europe was by far VW’s largest EV market, accounting for 61% of all electric models sold through September. China was second.
Although sales were up 4% in China, Antilitz warned the company could lose market share until new models with XPeng begin rolling out. Volkswagen has already drastically slashed prices to keep up in China, its largest market by profits.
Meanwhile, head of strategy at VW Group America, Reinhardt Fischer, said the automaker is “not scaling back plans for EVs in the US.” Fischer added VW aims to launch an EV under $35,000 in the US.
Source: dpa
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Paris’ bike-share system, Vélib has long been considered one of the shining success stories of urban micromobility. With a massive fleet of over 20,000 pedal and electric-assist bicycles around Paris, the service has helped millions of residents and tourists get around the City of Light without needing a car or scooter. But lately, a growing problem is threatening to knock the wheels off this urban mobility marvel: theft and joyriding.
According to city officials and the service operator, more than 600 Vélib bikes are now going missing every single week. That’s over 30 bikes a day simply vanishing from the system – some stolen outright, others taken on “joy rides” and never returned.
“At the moment we’re missing 3,000 bikes,” explained Sylvain Raifaud, head of the Agemob company that currently operates the Velib system. That’s nearly 15% of over 20,000 Vélib bikes across Paris.
The sticky-fingered culprits aren’t necessarily professional thieves or organized crime rings. Instead, they’re often regular users who treat the shared bikes like disposable toys.
The city estimates that many people have figured out how to pry the bikes out of the system’s parking docks, unlocking one for a casual cruise and then ditching it somewhere far from a docking station.
Once pried free, the bikes are technically usable for the next 24 hours until their automatic locking feature kicks in. At that point, the bikes are often simply abandoned. Some end up in alleyways. Others get tossed in rivers. A few just disappear completely.
And since the bikes are intended to be parked at their many docking stations around the city, they don’t have GPS chips, further complicating recovery of “liberated” bikes.
The issue started small but has grown into more than an inconvenience – it’s beginning to undermine the entire purpose of the service. With bikes going missing at such a high rate, many Vélib docking stations are left empty, especially during rush hours.
Riders looking for a quick commute or a convenient hop across town are increasingly finding themselves without available bikes, or having to walk long distances to find a functioning one.
That kind of unreliability chips away at user confidence and threatens to drive potential riders back into cars, cabs, or other less sustainable forms of transport at a time when Paris has already made great strides to dramatically reduce car usage in the city.
The losses are financially painful, too. Replacing stolen or vandalized bikes isn’t cheap, and the resources spent on tracking down missing equipment or reinforcing anti-theft measures are stretching thin. Vélib has faced theft and vandalism issues before, especially during its early years, but this latest surge has officials sounding the alarm with renewed urgency.
Officials acknowledge that there’s no easy fix. Paris, like many cities with bike-share systems, walks a fine line between accessibility and accountability. Part of what makes Vélib so successful is its ease of use and widespread availability. But those same features make it vulnerable to misuse – especially when enforcement is limited and the consequences for abuse are minimal.
The timing of the problem is especially unfortunate. In recent years, Paris has seen impressive results in reducing car traffic, expanding bike lanes, and promoting cycling as a key part of its sustainable transport strategy. Vélib is a cornerstone of that plan. But if the system becomes too unreliable, it risks losing the very people it was designed to serve.
Meanwhile, as Parisians increasingly find themselves staring at empty docks, the challenge for the city and Vélib will be to restore confidence in the system without making it harder to use. That means striking the right balance between freedom and responsibility, between open access and protection against abuse.
In a city where cycling is supposed to be the future of mobility, losing thousands of bikes to joyriders and sticky fingers isn’t just frustrating; it’s unsustainable.
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