Audi Brussels’ hope for a miracle buried once and for all (update)

The curtain has definitely fallen on Audi Brussels. The hope for a miracle in finding a take-over candidate is dead and buried, with the last one pulling out. The official date of the death certificate remains February 28th, 2025, when the last Audi Q8 e-tron will be made.

Audi Brussels’ spokesperson, Peter D’hoore, confirmed that the search for new activities for the modern EV plant has ended. Even the idea of refurbishing second-hand cars before being offered to the market turned out to be a dead end. Meanwhile, the factory is still paralyzed due to a lack of parts caused by a strike at one of the major suppliers, Imperial Logistics, where all 295 employees will also lose their jobs.

Mystery truck manufacturer

Eventually, there was one stalk of straw to grasp with a new potential investor surfacing, a ‘mystery’ commercial vehicle—truck and bus—manufacturer. That one – the name was never made public – pulled out last week.

Audi confirmed at the end of October that the factory will officially end production of its single Audi model, the Q8 e-tron electric SUV, built in Brussels. Until that day, the 2,900 employees will keep their jobs and work two shifts on some 6,000 cars to finish. From March, a few hundred may remain to dismantle the factory’s machinery.

Happy uncertainty ends?

Employees at the Brussels factory were initially ‘happy’ that the uncertainty ended with the fixed closure date and the promise of no layoffs until then. Still, many had lost hope of restarting with a new investor and were already looking for a new job elsewhere. They are ensured they can stay working until February and won’t lose their golden handshake when taking another job.

Ultimately, Volkswagen Group’s premium brand Audi has failed to find a suitable investor for its troubled electric vehicle factory in Brussels. And to be honest, with the news that Volkswagen itself will close three factories in Germany – something unseen in the car giant’s history – nobody expected any good to come from that direction.

Audi Chief Operating Officer Gerd Walker said earlier this month that an internal search within the VW Group for future car production or alternative uses for the plant had failed.

Ongoing talks on redundancy scheme

Audi’s decision to stop looking for alternatives does not please the unions. “We will not accept this. We want alternatives to be further investigated in a separate working group. Still, the management does not agree,” says Franky De Schrijver, ABVV trade union representative in the newspaper De Standaard.

On Wednesday, talks between the unions and the management on the redundancy scheme started again. Audi has set aside €1.2 billion for the closure of the Brussels plant, but the unions are not satisfied with the severance pay proposed by the management so far.

Audi is also considering reducing its workforce in Germany after a previous bloodletting in 2019 and considering the job guarantee that runs until 2029, the German press reported recently. Like its European competitors, the brand is suffering from declining sales of electric models, rising costs, and competition from Chinese brands.