VW Group could axe half its models in the biggest shake-up of its history
Europe's biggest carmaker is bracing for painful surgery
When the company behind Volkswagen, Audi, Porsche, Skoda, Cupra, Bentley and Lamborghini starts talking about halving its model range, you know the industry is in a genuinely difficult moment. According to multiple reports, VW Group is preparing the largest restructuring in its 89-year history, and it could reshape Europe's car landscape for years to come.
Half the models could go
The headline figure is startling: reports suggest VW Group wants to cut the number of models offered across its brands by up to half. That would touch everything from mainstream Volkswagen, Skoda, Seat and Cupra models to the premium ranges of Audi, Porsche, Bentley and Lamborghini. The logic is brutal but familiar: fewer, more profitable models, less overlap between brands, and lower development and production costs in a market that no longer supports endless niche variants.
Jobs and factories on the line
The human cost could be enormous. Reports point to up to 100,000 job cuts, double the roughly 50,000 already agreed with unions in late 2024, and the possible closure of four German plants: Volkswagen's sites in Hanover, Zwickau and Emden, plus Audi's Neckarsulm factory. Together those four employ more than 45,000 people. Painfully, Zwickau is VW's flagship EV plant and Emden builds the ID.4 and ID.7, so this cuts right into the company's electric future, not just its old combustion business.
Why now
The pressures have been building for a while. VW cites fierce competition from Chinese brands, stiff US import tariffs, tougher regulation and softening demand in Europe, a combination it has said makes its current business model unsustainable. The numbers back it up: first-quarter 2026 net profit fell 28% year-on-year to 1.56 billion euro, on revenue down 2% to 75.7 billion euro. CEO Oliver Blume and CFO Arno Antlitz are also reportedly weighing a deeper structural change, spinning the core VW brand and parts operations into separate entities.
Nothing is confirmed yet
Important caveat: these are reported plans and the subject of tense negotiations, not signed-off decisions. Talks with Germany's powerful unions and works councils will be fraught, and the final shape of any restructuring could look very different. It also arrives against a backdrop of persistent speculation about VW's ownership of brands like Lamborghini and Ducati, part of the same broader question of what the group really needs to keep.
AutoNext Take
This is a genuinely sobering story, and not one we take any pleasure in reporting. VW Group is the beating heart of the European car industry, and news like this, following hard on the heels of a rough set of Porsche sales figures, shows just how brutally the ground is shifting under the continent's legacy makers as China, tariffs and a stalling EV transition all bite at once. Behind the numbers are tens of thousands of livelihoods in Germany and beyond.
There is an argument that a leaner, more focused VW Group could be a healthier one, and it is hard to deny the brands duplicate a lot between them. But halving a model range and closing flagship EV plants is a drastic way to get there, and it raises uncomfortable questions about whether Europe can still build affordable cars at home. We will be watching the union talks very closely.
