VW Is Renting Thousands Of Parking Spaces For Cars It Can’t Sell

Volkswagen is being forced to rent thousands of parking spaces in order to store cars it can’t legally sell yet.

The Worldwide Harmonised Light Vehicle Testing Procedure (WLTP, for some reason), which replaced the frankly useless New European Driving Cycle (NEDC), has affected many new cars’ emissions and fuel economy to such a degree that many can’t legally be sold until they are modified and/or recertified.

We’ve already reported on how the VW Group’s EA888-powered hot hatchbacks have had to sacrifice power in order to meet the new regulations, punting some of them back to output levels they had years ago.

But while the search for lasting fixes goes on, cars that are rolling off production lines before being fettled have to be stored somewhere. VW has reportedly rented a number of multi-storey car parks and there’s talk of using the still-delayed Berlin-Brandenburg airport, which, as you’d imagine, has quite a lot of space that’s not being used right now.

VW is also shutting down certain factories for part of the week to slow the current over-supply of cars. The main Wolfsburg plant will shut on 1-2 days per week in August and September. Zwickau, which makes parts for the Golf, and Emden, which makes the Passat, will also reduce their operating hours.

Source: Automotive News Europe