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Volkswagen chief executive Oliver Blume was jeered by more than 10,000 workers at the group's Wolfsburg headquarters, as he defended a restructuring plan that could ultimately double the group's job losses to around 100,000 and place German plant closures back on the table, in the sharpest confrontation yet between management and labour at Europe's largest carmaker. Blume and Volkswagen brand chief Thomas Schäfer used the 25 August plant meeting, the first of a series of town

The competitive tide that has battered Germany's carmakers in China is now running strongly on their own territory, with fresh data showing domestic brands losing share of the German electric-vehicle market even as it booms, and analysts warning of further profit warnings to come. German group brands still lead their home EV market, but their combined share fell sharply to 54.2 per cent in the first half of 2026 from 63.5 per cent a year earlier, according to Professor Stefan

Gerry McGovern, the designer behind the reborn Land Rover Defender and a generation of Range Rovers, has said his career in car design is far from over, in his first public comments since his sudden and contested departure from Jaguar Land Rover, and a signal that one of the industry's most influential figures intends to return to the drawing board. Speaking exclusively to Autocar's My Week in Car podcast, published on 12 August, McGovern set out to correct the record on an e

The British government has announced almost £130 million of investment in next-generation vehicle technology, backing Bentley, Nissan and a raft of smaller firms, in a bid to arrest a steep decline in domestic car production and reindustrialise the country's manufacturing heartlands. Delivered through the £4 billion DRIVE35 programme, described by ministers as the largest state investment in the UK car industry since the post-war era, the funding will support more than 1,800

Skoda is preparing to open order books on the Peaq, a seven-seat electric SUV that becomes the most expensive model in the Czech brand's history, in a deliberate step upmarket that tests how far a marque built on value can stretch its pricing as it doubles its electric range. The Peaq is Skoda's new flagship and its largest car to date, measuring 4.87 metres in length, some 12 centimetres longer than the combustion-engined Kodiaq. Built on the Volkswagen Group's MEB platform,

Porsche has agreed to eliminate a further 5,000 jobs at its German sites by 2035, taking its cumulative restructuring toward 9,000 roles, in a stark admission that the collapse of its Chinese business and a costly retreat from electrification have upended what was once the industry's most profitable carmaker. The executive board and general works council signed off on the "Future Package" on 27 July, a deal negotiated with the IG Metall union and the Südwestmetall employers'

Stellantis swung back to a quarterly profit as a resurgent North American business drove revenues higher, but a squeeze on European margins caused by intensifying Chinese competition left earnings short of expectations and sent the shares sharply lower. The owner of Jeep, Peugeot, Fiat and Ram reported net profit of €293 million for the second quarter, a marked recovery from a €1.87 billion loss a year earlier, when one-off charges dominated the accounts. Net revenues climbed

Renault returned to profit in the first half of 2026, powered by a surge in electric vehicle sales, in a set of numbers that offered a rare note of resilience from a European mass-market carmaker under sustained pressure from Chinese rivals. The French group reported first-half revenue of €30.25 billion on Wednesday, up 9.4 per cent year on year, and swung to a net profit of €700 million from a loss of more than €11 billion in the same period of 2025, when a one-off charge ti

Audi lowered its full-year guidance on Monday and confirmed the elimination of a night shift at its Neckarsulm plant, in a stark signal that the pressures reshaping Germany's premium car industry are translating into hard capacity decisions. The Volkswagen-owned marque now expects 2026 revenue of €58 billion to €63 billion, down from a prior floor of at least €63 billion, and cut its operating-margin target by a percentage point to between 5 and 7 per cent. Net cash flow guid

Ford has agreed a Europe-focused manufacturing joint venture with Geely Auto at its Valencia plant, in a deal that hands a Chinese carmaker its first European production base and underscores how far the competitive balance has shifted against legacy Western manufacturers. The venture, announced in Valencia on Thursday, will be 66 per cent owned by Ford and 34 per cent by Geely, subject to regulatory approval, with operations beginning in the first half of 2027 and vehicles ro

Volkswagen is preparing what could be the largest restructuring in automotive history, with chief executive Oliver Blume said to be assessing the closure of four German plants and the elimination of as many as 100,000 jobs as Europe's biggest carmaker struggles against Chinese rivals and shrinking margins. The proposals, presented to senior management last week and to be discussed by the supervisory board on 9 July, would shutter sites at Hanover, Zwickau, Emden and Audi's Ne

BYD is searching for an existing factory in southern Europe to house its second assembly plant on the continent, with Spain among the countries on its shortlist, as the Chinese electric-vehicle maker races to establish local production before Brussels tightens its rules on where cars are built. The company would rather take over a brownfield site than build from scratch, executive vice president Stella Li told reporters in Berlin during the European launch of the Dolphin G, a