“Difficult economic conditions and the lack of predictability of subsidies in certain markets are currently leading to a certain reluctance among customers to purchase fully electric cars,” explains Peter D’hoore, spokesperson for Audi Brussels. This applies to the entire automotive sector, not just the German manufacturer, he notes.
Since Audi only produces fully electric cars in Forest, the car manufacturer is directly affected by this situation and has to adjust its production program, it said.
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“The company is going through a challenging period in a very volatile market,” says D’hoore. The reasoning is that working with temporary staff gives the manufacturer the flexibility to guarantee profitable production. “We use temporary staff to deal with peaks in orders. As soon as those peaks disappear, the number of temporary workers will be reduced.”
The unions were informed on Thursday during a long-planned meeting of the works council. The ABVV has given a strike notice and hopes to negotiate with the management to reduce the figure of 371 dismissals. “The demand for electric cars has dropped, especially in the more expensive segment,” the management justified the decision, according to Franky De Schrijver, union representative at ABVV. The factory in Forest only builds the large electric Audi Q8 e-tron. Audi recently launched a smaller, cheaper counterpart to the Q8, the Q6 e-tron, but it is not made in Forest.
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Due to the low demand for those cars, the other 3,000 permanent employees will also have to work less and will often be on temporary unemployment. “The factory is not running at the moment,” says De Schrijver.
The survival of the factory in Forest is in any case threatened, as the Q8 will no longer be made in Forest from 2027. A new model has not yet been assigned. The ABVV expects to know in November whether or not a new model will be allocated. “We meet with management about this every six weeks. Audi traditionally announces in November which series it will produce in which factories.”
